Laurence Pithie (Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe) made it two stage wins in two days for New Zealand at the Tour de Wallonie, winning from a reduced lead group after a massive crash devastated the peloton 1.5km from the finish line.
The 23-year-old was one of only around a dozen riders to avoid the carnage, surviving along with a trio of Red Bull teammates, three Netcompany Ineos riders, and several others.
Jordi Meeus and Danny van Poppel set up the lead-out for Pithie heading into the uphill finish in Vaux-sur-Sûre, and he duly finished it off after going head-to-head with Kim Heiduk (Netcompany Ineos).
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Heiduk had no answer to Pithie's final acceleration and so took second place. Krists Neilands (NSN) rounded out the podium in third place.
"I'm super happy. The team did a great job. We expected a bit more chaos with the wind, but in the end, it wasn't strong enough to split it," Pithie said after the stage.
"But I just avoided the crash in the final. I hope everyone's OK because it looked pretty nasty. My teammates did a great job, and I can be super happy.
"[The crash] happened right in front of me. Me and Danny were super close to coming down. We just managed to swerve to the left. I think guys were fighting fully – it was a super stressful final with the wind, so guys were just fighting like usual, and there was a crash.
"It's been great so far. Two wins in three stages is super nice. We were disappointed not to win yesterday, so it's great we could come back today and show that we're still here.
"The next two days are super hard. I expect fireworks. A lot of teams will try and make it an aggressive race. We'll be ready, we have a strong team, and we'll go for the stage win again tomorrow."
Italian champion Filippo Conca (Jayco-AlUla) ventured out into the break of the day early on. He was joined by George Wood (Mg.K Vis-Costruzioni e Ambiente), Jarno Bellens (Baloise Verzekerigen-Het Poetsbureau Lions), Jonah Killy (Tartoletto-Isorex), Alvaro Segrado (Storck-MRW Bau), and Senne Thonnon (Flanders-Baloise).
However, with sprint teams, including Netcompany Ineos, Modern Adventure, NSN, and Alpecin-Premier Tech, hoping for a mass sprint finish, their time out front was always numbered.
The breakaway hit the final 30km of the 178km stage with a two-minute gap, but that decreased to 30 seconds over the next 10km. At 11km, it was over for the move, with Conca attacking in one last flourish before the sprint squads took over.
Alpecin, Ineos, and NSN were at the front for the final 3km, but plenty of riders' dreams came to an abrupt end 1.5km from the finish. Red Bull racer Arne Marit went down near the front of the group following a touch of wheels, and dozens behind him were left with nowhere to go.
A select group of riders up front managed to avoid the massive crash, and the lucky few pushed on to contest the finish among themselves. In the end, Red Bull had the numbers to put on a solid lead-out for Pithie, and he finished off the job to take his third win of 2026.
Heiduk is the new race leader following the stage. The German previously lain in fourth overall, three seconds down on stage 2 winner Ben Oliver (Modern Adventure), but now moves into the orange jersey thanks to six bonus seconds picked up at the finish.
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