Tour of Slovenia: Laurence Pithie wins by a country mile in Red Bull 1-2 on stage 1

Laurence Pithie sprinted to a resounding victory on the opening day of the Tour of Slovenia in a 1-2 finish for Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe.

The New Zealander opened up such a big gap on his rivals in the final dash to the line that his own lead-out man, Arne Marit, was able to continue sprinting into that space to celebrate in his wake.

Edoardo Zambanini (Bahrain Victorious) clinched the final spot on the podium but he was multiple bike lengths behind even Marit, in what was a dominant display from the Red Bull team.

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The opening stage of the five-stage race measured 141km between Velenje and Rogaśka Slatina, with some lumpy terrain that reduced the peloton to around 40 riders by the finish.

Red Bull-Bora-Hasgrohe had six of their seven riders in there for the run-in, which they dominated, but nearly lost control of in the final kilometre.

It was a lead-out in two parts, as GC riders Florian Lipowitz and Giulio Pellizzari led the way in the final 2km, while Pithie followed Marit several positions further down the bunch, the train having been interrupted.

There was a moment of panic inside the final kilometre when riders flicked out and Marit had to swerve to avoid crashing. However, Belgian played a blinder in spotting space on the left-hand side of the road, moving up and into it. A quick check over the shoulder and Pithie was indeed latching onto it, and from their the legs did the talking.

Pithie emerged from the slipstream with around 150 metres to go and stormed clear to celebrate his fifth win in the past month.

Pithie pulls on the leader's jersey as the first overall GC leader of the Tour of Slovenia.

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