Deutschland Tour: Schachmann wins stage 2

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Max Schachmann gave Quick-Step Floors their second victory in two days at the Deutschland Tour, beating Matej Mohoric (Bahrain-Merida) in a sprint to the line. Tom Dumoulin (Team Sunweb), who had instigated the race-winning attack, rolled across the line for third place.

With victory, Schachmann took the overall race lead off the hands of his teammate Alvaro Hodeg, who had been dropped during an aggressive finale. Mohoric now sits in second place at four seconds with Dumoulin in third on the same time as the Slovenian.

Schachmann latched onto an attack from Dumoulin at the top of the final climb of the day, after multiple attacks from the general classification riders on the ascent. The gap was never that big, but the two worked together to build a small buffer between themselves and the chasing pack. Behind them, several riders could be seen attempting to bridge the gap as they wound their way through the finish town of Trier.

Mohoric finally made contact as they reached the flamme rouge, while Nils Politt (Katusha-Alpecin) took advantage of the tactical games they were playing to join them with just a few hundred metres to go. Politt decided not to hang about, attacking almost as soon as he'd made the juncture, but it proved much too early and he was overhauled as Schachmann and Mohoric went head to head. In the end, it was the home rider who had just enough to take victory by less than a wheel's length.

"It's so amazing the feeling. I really marked this race on my calendar. It's hard because you only have four days, and three chances for me. I'm so happy to win the stage today," said Schachmann. "Nils Politt came from the back, he kind of surprised us a bit. I knew that he would be a fast man but he went a little bit early. I went into his slipstream and used his speed. I then Mohoric on my right side and I had to accelerate even more. I'm just happy that it was enough."

On following Dumoulin's attack, Schachmann said, "I tried at first but then I knew that I couldn't do it from the front so I dropped myself a little bit down the group. I saw Tom going and I knew that I couldn't hesitate so I immediately launched my sprint to try and chase him down. We were able to make it to the finish line with some good team work.

"Of course [the GC] is the goal. We have two more hard stages coming up so it won't be an easy challenge. I think I'm here with a strong team and I really hope to defend this jersey."

How it happened

After a straight-forward opening sprint stage, day two of the renewed Deutschland Tour would be a different prospect with a hilly 196km offering from Bonn to Trier. A status quo was quickly established with a four-man move of Etienne van Empel (Roompot-Nederlandse Loterij), Gaetan Pons (Leopard Pro Cycling), Patrick Haller (Heizomat Rad-Net.de), and John Mandrysch (Team Dauner D&DQ l Akkon) getting away in the opening 10 kilometres.

Quick-Step Floors, with their leader Hodeg, took control on the front of the peloton and allowed the leaders to gain an advantage of close to five minutes before they began reeling things in. With the first two of four classified climbs done and dusted with 50 kilometres remaining, the gap to the escapees had dropped to under a minute.

As the lead continued to fall, and with many of the big sprinters still within the group, the peloton sensed an opportunity break the race up. Katusha-Alpecin kicked things off, sparking a flurry of moves that saw Romain Bardet (AG2R La Mondiale) and Dumoulin attempt to go clear.

Bardet and Dumoulin were not able to distance the bunch but several riders were. Thursday's second place finisher Pascal Ackermann was one, jumping clear with a number of his Bora-Hansgrohe teammates, plus Mohoric, bouyed by his recent victory at the BinckBank Tour.

As Ackermann lost his teammates, he and Mohoric gained further companions with Dmitrii Strakhov (Katusha-Alpecin), Jasha Sutterlin (Movistar), Emerson Oronte (Rally), Scott Davies (Dimension Data) and Jeremy Maison (Fortuneo-Samsic) joining them. The group got over the penultimate climb and got the bell at the finish line, but they would be brought back by the group led by AG2R La Mondiale with 12 kilometres to go.

Though the attack didn't succeed, it had done some damage with the group having shed some serious numbers, including the race leader Hodeg. Greipel had hung in but he would not be able to hold on over the final ascent, with attacks coming off the front as soon as the reduced bunch hit the climb.

Team Sky put in an initial move with Geraint Thomas before Sebastian Henao took it up. It marked another string of attacks with Bardet having another dig close to the top of the climb. Damiano Caruso struck out to take the points and three bonus seconds at the top of the ascent with Dumoulin and then Bardet taking two and one seconds respectively.

Over the top, Dumoulin used his time trial power to pull out a gap on the ever-reducing group of favourites with just over six kilometres to go, taking Max Schachmann with him. Despite his early efforts, Mohoric had held onto the group of favourites and put in a mighty effort to track down the two leaders as they passed under the flamme rouge. As the three played cat and mouse games, Politt caught them and quickly made his own bid for the line. He didn't have enough to drive all the way to the line and Schachmann stormed past to take yet another win for Quick-Step.

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