The American cyclist Tyler Farrar made amends for leaving the Tour de France early due to injuries suffered in a crash by defending his title in the Vattenfall Cyclassics one-day race overnight.
The Garmin-Transitions team sprinter Farrar came into Germany's biggest one day race, held over 216 kilometres in Hamburg, warning that he would come under threat from local hope Andre Greipel.
But after a tense finale Farrar timed his final drive to perfection, emerging from the wheel of a Team Sky rider to keep Norway's Edvald Boasson Hagen in second and HTC-Columbia sprinter Greipel in third.
In doing so, the American becomes the first rider to win back-to-back editions of the race, which was first held in 1996.
