Paul Magnier (Soudal-QuickStep) delivered on his favourite status on stage 1 of the Tour of Slovakia, sprinting to victory by a country mile.
The 22-year-old Frenchman won four of the five stages of this race – also known as the Okola Slovenska – 12 months ago, and has only got better since then, winning three stages and the points classification at the Giro d'Italia in May.
And he made his superiority count on the opening day of this edition, where his QuickStep team are one of only three WorldTour squads in a field largely made up of third-tier Continental outfits.
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Jenthe Biermans of the ProTeam level Cofidis was a distant second, with Sander Granberg of the Conti-level Drali-Repsol squad rounding out the podium.
The 162km stage starting and finishing in Košice featured several short climbs and while there were plenty of attacks once the day's main breakaway had been caught, things came back together for a bunch sprint.
Surprisingly, Soudal-QuickStep took a back seat, instead letting the Austrian squad Hrinkow Advarics have the front before fellow WorldTour team Groupama-FDJ bossed the final two kilometres. But QuickStep, with a squad that includes the young talent Henrique Bravo, dropped Magnier off on the wheel of FDJ's sprinter Matteo Milan in advance of the final bend with 400 metres to go.
From there, Magnier didn't wait for Milan to open up, instead stealing a march and hitting out with just over 200 metres to go. The acceleration was utterly decisive, and he sailed clear to claim his ninth win of the season, and pull on the first leader's jersey of the 2026 Tour of Slovakia.
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