CRO Race: Elia Viviani wins opening stage sprint

Elia Viviani (Ineos Grenadiers) claimed his first win of the season, taking out the opening stage of the CRO Race ahead of Tobias Lund Andresen (Team dsm-firmenich) with Alexander Kristoff (Uno-X) in third.

The win comes a year after Viviani's last sprint win in the same race and moves him into the first leader's jersey.

"I have achieved very good results throughout the season, so this stage win is a big relief. The team prepared the perfect lead out for me in the final kilometres. I came here to win as many stages as possible, but Magnus Sheffield will be fighting for the overall general classification win for the team," said Viviani, who came to Croatia straight from the Netherlands where he took part in the European Road Championships. 

With only three categorised climbs in the 182km stage from Primosten to Sinj, it was a day for the sprinters, but that didn't stop the breakaway hunting for TV time.

Mateusz Grabis (Voster ATS), Michal Schuran (ATT Investments), Raul Garcia Pierna (Equipo Kern Pharma), Simone Bevilacqua (Eolo-Kometa) and Edward Ravasi (Hrinkow Advarics) made up the day's breakaway until Grabis lost contact, leaving four riders to try to hold off the peloton.

What had been a gap of nearly three minutes came down to half that in the final 50km and then began falling rapidly.

Ravasi was dropped on a hill soon after leaving only three dangling ahead of a peloton not too intent on catching them until about 20km to go.

A crash disrupted the run-in with Matej Mohorič (Bahrain Victorious) the most notable faller forced to chase back as he fell outside the 3km to go mark.

Ineos Grenadiers took control of the lead out for Viviani and he just held off a challenge from Lund Andresen. Mohorič crossed the finish line 50 seconds down on the main group.

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