Luke Lamperti (Soudal-QuickStep) exploded around the lead-out by teammate Julian Alaphilippe to win the opening stage of the Czech Tour.
Pavel Bittner (Team dsm-firmenich PostNL) finished second, having launched his attack too early and could not hold off the fast finish of the young US rider. Itamar Einhorn (Israel-Premier Tech) finished third.
“It’s the restart of the second part of the season for me, so to get a win the first race back in the second half is really good. The way the team rode today I think we can be confident the next three days,” the 21-year-old said after the victory.
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“It’s hard to succeed on a flat stage with some sprint teams here to control, so it was unlikely [for the breakaway], but you never know.”
The final flat kilometres followed the bends of the Ostravice river in Ostrava, with a sharp left-hand turn with 500 metres to go. Alaphilippe led out Soudal-QuickStep as the Lamperti clung to his back wheel. Bittner jumped to the front of the with 250 metres to go, but was overtaken by Lamperti in the closing 100 metres.
The opening 151.2km stage led the peloton to northeast Czechia in Ostrava, just 15km from the border of Poland, the route lush with the green canopy of trees, blue skies and an abundance of castles. This year's
Tomáš Kalojíros (Pierre Baguette Cycling) was the first rider to launch an attack before the first 10km clipped away from the start in Prostějov and was joined by Filip Řeha (ATT Investments). The Czechia duo built an advantage of 1:06 across the next 5km.
The twosome scooped up the only KOM points at Kozlov (5.6km at 5.1%), Kalojíros with six points and Řeha with four. Then 40km later, Kalojíros collected 10 intermediate sprint points on offer while Řeha took six.
Soudal-QuickStep led the chase as the gap was at 2:00 at the mid-point of the race. Two small uncategorised climbs were the only sections of the remaining 70km that broke up an otherwise flat run into Ostrava.
The peloton, UAE Team Emirates an Intermarché-Wanty setting the pace, seemed in no rush to overtake the front pair, who shared the pacemaking with a 1:45 gap with 36km to go across the last small hills on the route.
With 12km to go a motivated peloton moved in for the catch, but Kalojíros had no desire to give up on a possible major victory in his 11-year career on the Continental level, and he accelerated away from his companion for a solo effort.
The sprint teams were not interested in a sentimental story and swooped up the Czech rider with 5km to go, the colours of the eight WorldTour teams massing to the front to begin setting up their sprinters.
Soudal-QuickStep’s firepower was too strong at the end, Lamperti earning his fifth career victory in Europe. The three-time US criterium champion rode the Czech Tour for the first time last year and finished third in the opening stage at his inaugural appearance.
Stage 2 is a day for the climbers, 172.7km from Zlín to Pustevny with 3,389 metres of elevation gain.
Results
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