Taking off from Opole, the riders took on the 151.5 km-long undulating route towards Zabrze, where, as expected, the second stage ended in a mass sprint. After a few kilometres, a duo was able to break away and quickly pedal out a lead of several minutes. In the second half of the race, the teams of the sprinters gradually began to chip away at the lead of the break, which had in the meantime increased to 4:30 minutes. BORA-hansgrohe was always to be seen at the front of the peloton, with the advantage of the leaders being reduced to one minute with 30 km of racing left. In a fast-paced finale, the team brought Pascal Ackermann into a perfect position, with the German fast man launching a strong sprint, which was, however, not enough today to take the win from World Champion M. Pedersen.
Result
01 M. Pedersen 3:26:02
02 P. Ackermann +0:00
03 D. Ballerini +0:00
04 R. Barbier +0:00
GENERAL CLASSIFICATION
1- Mads Pedersen Trek-Segafredo
2- Pascal Ackermann – BORA-hansgrohe
3- Kamil Malecki – CCC Team
4- Luka Mezgec – Mitchelton-Scott
5- Davide Ballerini – Deceuninck – Quick-Step
From the Finish Line
“We controlled the race all day quite well, with my teammates finishing this off by doing an excellent job in the finale. They brought me into a perfect position in the finishing straight, and I thank them for the strong display of teamwork. I gave it my all in the sprint, but unfortunately it wasn’t quite enough to take the win. It was a very tight sprint in the end, so chapeau to Pedersen for getting to the line first.” – Pascal Ackermann
“Our goal today was to support Pascal as well as possible and to take bonus seconds for Max. Since there were only two riders in the leading group, a bonus second was awarded at the sprint classifications. We tried to support Max here, but unfortunately it didn’t quite work out. But the guys rode well together and handled the difficult task of supporting both our sprinters and our climbers very well. Maciej Bodnar did a particularly good job today, because together with a rider from Israel Start-up Nation he was able to control the race perfectly and that was a very strong performance. In the finale, the guys produced a very strong leadout. We had two lead-out riders for Pascal on the home straight, Michael Schwarzmann and Rudi Selig, but in the end it wasn’t quite enough. Pedersen deserved the victory, his sprint was very strong. Over the next two days, we’ll work to support our GC riders as well as we can and on Sunday the sprinters will have yet another chance. All in all, it was pleasing to see such coherent teamwork from all the guys today.” – Christian Pömer, Sports Director
