Raymond Kreder (Garmin-Sharp) showed his great sprinting potential when he won the bunch sprint in the flat German one-day race Velothon Berlin. In the final dash to the line, he held off Sam Bennett (NetApp-Endura) and Alexander Porsev (Katusha) to succeed Marcel Kittel as the winner of one of Germany's biggest one-day races.

Raymond Kreder has mostly been working as part of the lead-out for Tyler Farrar but has occasionally got his chance to show his potential in the bunch sprints on his own. Today he got such an opportunity when he led Garmin-Sharp in the Velothon Berlin which is held on a flat course in the German capital.

And the young Dutchman paid back his team's confidence when he emerged as the strongest in the bunch sprint that was always likely to be the outcome of the rather new event. Perfectly set up by his teammates, he held off Sam Bennett and Alexander Porsev in the bunch sprint.

The race panned out like a very traditional sprint race as the early part was dominated by a 4-rider breakaway that was gradually whittled down to three. However, the sprint teams had everything under control and they were in no mood to miss the chance to sprint it out in the German capital. Despite a one-minute lead 15km from the line, the escapees failed to make it to the finish and all was set for a big bunch sprint.

With the win, Kreder broke the German dominance in the race that was created in 2011 when Marcel Kittel won the opening edition. Since then it has been an affair for the two big German sprinters as André Greipel was fastest in 2012 and Kittel took his second win 12 months ago. This time it was Kreder who emerged as the strongest as not even a single German made it onto the podium.

The next big race in Germany takes place in less than two weeks when the Bayern Rundfahrt, the main stage race in the country, takes place over five days, starting on May 28.

A flat course

The fourth edition of the Velothon Berlin took place on a 175.1km course that started and finished in Berlin. The first part consisted of a big loop on the southern outskirts of the capital and it all finished with six laps of a flat finishing circuit in the city centre.

It was a very rainy day in Germany but that didn't dampen the spirits of the continental teams that were eager to make the most out of an opportunity to ride against some of the biggest teams in the world. They were all keen to go on the attack and the race was off to a fast start before a break finally took off.

The break takes off

Tomasz Mickiewicz (ActiveJet), Tim Gebauer (Stölting), Julien Essers (Heizomat) and Christopher Hatz (Bergstrasse) made up the early escape and they were 1.30 ahead after 20km of racing. At the 23km mark, they had extended it to 2 minutes and the gap continued to grow, reaching 5.15 28km further up the road.

At the 60km mark, the gap reached a maximum of 6.00 but now the sprint teams had taken control. With 80km to go, it was already down to 3.40 and the situation was completely under control.

The break splits up

Mickiewicz got dropped from the front group which continued to press on and still enjoyed a 2.30 lead with three laps to go. With 15km to go, they still had a minute and they had now put the peloton under pressure.

There was nothing to do against the fast-moving peloton though and on the final lap, they were swallowed up. All was set for a big sprint finish and here Kreder proved his sprinting potential by beating Bennett and Porsev.