Tour of Slovakia: Steimle wins crash-marred stage 2 sprint

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In a chaotic finale, Jannick Steimle (Deceuninck-Quickstep) won stage 2 of the Tour of Slovenia, handsomely beating the second placed Peter Sagan (Bora Hansgrohë). Behind them, a crash disrupted the other sprinters as Cees Bol (Team DSM) slid out on the final corner. Navigating this tumult, Alvaro Hodeg finished third and retained his overall lead.

Sagan, the chief agent of chaos on the stage, had attacked near the summit of a Category 2 climb 14 kilometres from the finish, and only Steimle could follow. Though they were eventually caught by a small chase group and then the rest of the peloton with 3.5 kilometres to go, they proved the strongest riders in the sprint. 

How it unfolded

From the small town of Spišské Podhradie to Dolný Kubín, the historic capital of the region, stage 2 meandered through the forests that populate central Slovakia. Much like stage 1, the severity of a profile containing two category 2 climbs and a Category 1 climb concealed the type of race that awaited as it ended in another bunch sprint.

Amidst the rain that fell on the stage’s opening kilometres, the breakaway sought to escape from the peloton. The initial escapees were caught, but more rose to replace them and a five-man group formed after 18 kilometres. Composed of Idar Andersen (Uno-X Pro Cycling Team), Fredrik Dversnes (Gazprom - RusVelo), Jakub Otruba (Elkov - Kasper), Boštjan Murn (Adria Mobil), and the polka-dot jersey Andrea Garosio (Bardiani - CSF - Faizané), this breakaway built up an advantage that reached 4:20.

The main obstacle of the day arrived after sixty kilometres. A category 2 climb swiftly followed by a category 1 climb with little descent in between gave the appearance of a 25 kilometre ascent, at a shallow gradient of just under three per cent. At both opportunities, Garosio took maximum points, further extending his lead in the mountains classification. 

Dversnes, meanwhile, won two intermediate sprints and finished second in another, accumulating enough bonus seconds to move into the virtual overall top ten. Ultimately, though, he was unable to finish with the peloton and it was another beneficiary of these bonus seconds- Idar Anderson- who finished the day in the overall top ten.

Though Deceuninck-Quickstep and Bora-Hansgrohë had completed the majority of the early pace-making, Equipo Kern-Pharma moved to the front of the peloton with 35km to go and, with this injection of pace, the breakaway was caught 31 kilometres from the finish. 

Equipo Kern-Pharma continued to string out the peloton on the approach to the final climb of the day- a 4.9km ascent at a 3.5 per cent gradient. This climb, 20km from the finish, provided the ideal launchpad to foil a potential sprint and Sagan, determined to win in his home region, attacked near the summit. He crested the climb first with Steimle stuck to his back wheel and the rest of the peloton scattered behind him.  On the descent, Sagan opened up a time gap of 15 seconds but, hampered by Steimle’s refusal to contribute to the absence of his teammate Hodeg, the duo were caught by a small chase group. 

They, in turn, were pursued by a larger group containing Hodeg and the rest of Deceuninck-Quickstep. For the next five kilometres, the race rested on a knife edge, caught between the powers of Bora-Hansgrohë who drove the front group and Deceuninck-Quickstep who marshalled their considerable strength towards the chase. Eventually, the race regrouped on a roundabout 3.5km from the finish but Bora-Hansgrohë kept the pace high to disrupt Hodeg’s sprint as much as possible.

In the final kilometre Steimle moved to the front, a position that he never relinquished, and he led into the final corner at 300m to go, with Sagan poised on his back wheel. Sagan had no answer to Steimle’s sprint, however, and as the crash unfolded behind both of them, Steimle sprinted to victory.