Czech Tour: Netcompany Ineos dominate stage 2 to deliver AJ August to mountaintop victory and race lead

AJ August capitalised on a strong Netcompany Ineos team effort to soar to victory and into the race lead on stage 2 of the Czech Tour, finishing atop a 15km climb to Ještěd.

Ineos had paced for almost all of the long final climb, with Ben Turner going particularly deep after his second place on stage 1, meaning August was perfectly positioned going into the final battle for the line.

Initially hitting the front quite early, the American then let Alessandro Fancellu (MBH Bank CSB Telecom Fort) lead out the grinding uphill sprint before coming back around the Italian into the final 100 metres to grab the victory.

Domenico Pozzovivo (Solution Tech NIPPO Rali) finished third.

August now leads the GC by six seconds from Fancellu, taking over the leader's jersey from stage 1 winner Riley Sheehan (NSN) who put in a valiant effort but just faded near the top of the final climb.

"We let them [the break] have the same gap for a while, and then when we really start to increase the pace the gap came down quite quick so it was all under control," August said at the finish.

"It was a long climb but the gradients weren't really steep until the last kilometre, we knew we had to ride a steady pace, but then go all out in the last kilometre."

This marks August's third victory of this season after stage wins at Itzulia Basque Country and the Volta Comunitat Valenciana, and he should be one of Ineos' leaders as they try to defend the race lead over the remaining two stages.

"Definitely one of them, but we still have Embret [Svestad-Bårdseng] close on GC so we have two cards to play for sure," he said.

Friday's stage 2 from Mladá Boleslav to Ještěd was mainly flat for the first 100km, but then kicked up in difficulty for the final 55km, with back-to-back categorised climbs to the finish at Ještěd, atop a 15km ascent.

A four-rider breakaway got away early in the day, made up of Gil Gelders (Soudal-QuickStep), Mattia Bais (Polti VisitMalta), Martin Voltr (ATT Investments) and Michal Schuran (Team United Shipping).

They built up a gap of nearly three minutes and were out front most of the stage, surviving over the penultimate Výpřež climb, but after that Gelders and Bais pushed on as a pair, dropping the two Czech riders to try to defend a shrinking advantage.

Hitting the base of the climb, Gelders and Bais still had a 30-second gap, but Netcompany Ineos were pacing hard behind to reel them back in, and they were caught early on the climb. A few riders tried to counter, but the high pace in the bunch meant it was still a compact group going into the final 5km, aside from a few riders who were caught in a crash.

Stage 1 runner-up Ben Turner paced all the way into the final 2km with a mammoth effort, almost coming to a standstill when he pulled off to hand over to Jack Haig and the remainder of the Ineos mountain train. Leader Sheehan survived almost to the top, but cracked when the favourites started to accelerate, saying goodbye to the race lead.

After the big effort from his team, August found himself on the front possibly too early, but let Fancellu come round to launch the sprint, sticking on his wheel before pulling round in the final 100m to power to the win with a two-second margin.

"It was really incredible [on the last climb] with all the fans, it made the pain in the legs a little less but it still hurt quite bad," he said.

Results

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