Iúri Leitão (Caja Rural-Seguros RGA) stole a march on the major teams on stage 2 of the CRO Race to claim the victory with a well-timed long charge for the line.
Race leader and stage 1 winner Elia Viviani (Ineos Grenadiers) did his utmost to regain lost ground after Leitão launched his sneak attack with some 250 metres to go.
But the Italian had too much ground to make up, romping past Alexander Kristoff (Uno-X) for second but failing to reach the Portuguese racer.
"This is a great victory for me and the whole team, because it came against big competitors from the World Tour. I'm thankful to my team for their trust in me and I'm happy to finally have justified that trust. The relatively short stage worked well for us as it allowed us to save some energy for the very finish," stated Leitão after the stage.
A short, punchy day of racing between Biograd na Moru to Novalja saw a four-man break go clear early on, but the sprinters' teams were able to shut things down well before the finishing circuit, Leitão then upstaged all the big names with his well-timed late move.
Leitão’s teammate and Venezuelan National Champion Orluis Aular was also a key contributing factor to Caja Rural-Seguros RGA collectively upsetting the applecart.
In the last 300 metres, Aular swooped across the front of the peloton and then let the wheel go just after Leitão, himself the 2023 Omnium World Champion, had darted away in classic track specialist style.
Then the gently curving left-hand bend leading to the finish line made it impossible for the opposition to get back on terms and the win was in the bag.
"Today we had the intention of preparing the sprint for me, that is why the team has worked perfectly all day to leave me in front as comfortable as possible. In the climbs before the finish line, where it got quite hard, I already noticed that I felt good," Leitão said.
"The teammates were phenomenal during the stage, highlighting the help of Orluis [Aular] at the end to overtake cyclists in the last 3 kilometers. I caught a good wheel at the end, I had legs and that's why I decided to attack soon."
How it unfolded
Warm, dry weather and a very short stage distance encouraged a fast start and it took some time for the main early move to crystallize for good.
The breakaway that ultimately formed contained Kristijan Koren (Adria Mobil), Anze Skok (Ljubljana Gusto Santic), Jan Kaspar (ATT Investments) and Marvin Hammerschmid (Hrinkow Advarics).
But with a gap of just over a minute, as the race reached its final, critical hour, their chances of staying away were painfully uncertain.
On a series of undulating, open coastal roads, Skok was the first to get dropped of the four, visibly cramping while the trio battled on bravely. Then on the first of a last brace of climbs with some 25 kilometres to go, Lidl-Trek piled on the power to shred the threesome's lead to the bare minimum.
Kasper, the last survivor of the break, continued to stretch out the much-reduced bunch over the top and claim the mountains points, only to be reeled in on the fast-paced, edgy descent that followed.
After approaching the last climb at speed, further attacks looked to be on the cards, but instead, the peloton, by now fully regrouped, opted for a steady tempo.
Staying spread evenly across the winding, two-lane road as they moved uphill away from the coast, virtually nobody was dropped by the time they reached the summit.
As a result, the front group was still nearly 100 riders strong as the race approached the technical one-lap finishing circuit and a second bunch sprint in as many days looked all but certain.
The stage finally burst into some sort of semblance of life in the fast descent to the finishing city, touching speeds of 60km/h as the different lines of some of the big-name teams - Ineos, Bahrain, DSM - cranked up the pressure.
The peloton then blasted through the gently curving finish with 4.4 kilometres to go, moving onto a technical circuit consisting of multiple bends and a few grinding, short climbs.
Fighting to keep Viviani in position at the end of a four-man line of riders, Ineos Grenadiers teammates Luke Plapp and Magnus Sheffield first found themselves seeing off Bahrain Victorious only to have to contend with an equally aggressive Q36.5 and Jayco-AIUIa.
The British squad’s control of affairs subsequently crumbled in the increasingly fraught finale, and when Caja Rural-Seguros RGA pulled off the collective heist, none of the rival teams had a quick enough answer to stop them.
Viviani still remains in the overall lead for stage 3’s 133km ride from Otačac to Opatija after Wednesday’s surprise result - but with just six seconds to spare on Leitão overall and the rest of the peloton close behind, the top spot in the CRO Race remains very much up for grabs for now.
Results
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