Eddie Dunbar in the breakaway at Amstel Gold. It stretched its lead at one point to almost 16 minutes on the peloton and the young Irishman is looking very comfortable up front.
By Graham Gillespie
Young Irish rider Eddie Dunbar may be making his WorldTour debut today at Amstel Gold but he is clearly now overawed.
The 21-year-old Aqua Blue Sport rider was in a large breakaway at the time of writing.
Aqua Blue Sport were active from the gun, clearly keen to show what they can do after missing out on some big race invites of late.
Both Casper Pedersen and Aaron Gate were among the early attackers before the first of 35 climbs was reached.
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However, the group they were in was brought back and was countered by several other moves.
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And in the attack that eventually stuck were nine riders, including Eddie Dunbar.
Bram Tankink (LottoNL-Jumbo) is also clear, along with Tsgabu Grmay (Trek-Segafredo), Oscar Riesebeek (Roompot-Nederlandse Loterij) and Matteo Bono (UAE Team Emirates).
Also present are Lawson Craddock (EF-Drapac), Willem Smit (Katusha-Alpecin), Preben Van Hecke (Sport Vlaanderen-Baloise) and Marco Tizza (Nippo-Vini Fantini).
The peloton was clearly happy with the composition of the group and as it moved clear the bunch let it go.
The gap very quickly jumped out to seven minutes before reaching 15½ minutes.
However, with the 263km race at the halfway point at the time of publication, the gap had come back to 11:30.
