One year ago, Gerald Ciolek won a stage and wore the leader's jersey at the Bayern Rundfahrt but this year the German sprinter had less success. After a failed lead-out he finished outside the top 10 in the final sprint stage.

The Bayern Rundfahrt came to its conclusion today with Sam Bennett (Netapp Endura) winning the final stage from a mass sprint. Yauheni Hutarovich (AG2R La Mondiale) took 2nd on the line with Raymond Kreder (Garmin Sharp) in 3rd place. Andreas Stauff from Team MTN-Qhubeka p/b Samsung sprinted his way to 7th at the finish. In the overall classification, Geraint Thomas (Team Sky) could not be surpassed today and held on to the yellow leaders jersey.

In the early part of the final stage, Team MTN-Qhubeka p/b Samsung had Jaco Venter represented in a 9 man breakaway. The peloton weren’t keen on giving such a large group too much freedom and so the gap never grew above 3 minutes. With still 20km to go, the race came back together. A few late attacks went off the front in the closing kilometers but Netapp did a good job in keeping thing under control.

The final sprint was lead out by Netapp Endura with Garmin Sharp also in a good position. Nobody could match Bennett on the day though as he picked up his first victory of the week.

"The stage started pretty fast and on the first two climbs the peloton already blew into pieces," Stauff said. "We covered every move and finally got Jaco into the breakaway. Team Sky didn’t let them go too far though and the speed was pretty high all day. On the final laps around the old town of Nurnberg the break was caught and it came down to a bunch sprint.

"Unfortunately with 500m to go we got boxed in could only ride slalom through the riders and neither Gerald nor myself could really sprint. It is a bit disappointing to end the tour without a podium or stage win because the chances were definitely there, but in the end it is only bike racing and you cant help it even if the legs are there.

"The team worked really well together during the tour and we are still in the learning process during the leadouts but we are getting better each time and it is just a matter of time before it starts working out 7 to 8 times out of 10. That is when the results will come automatically."