Deutschland Tour: Alexander Kristoff wins stage 2

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Alexander Kristoff (UAE Team Emirates) won stage two of the Deutschland Tour in a bunch sprint. 

After being put in an ideal position as his teammate Sven Erik Bystrom led the peloton around the last corner, Kristoff initially looked as though he was going to be outsprinted by Phil Bauhaus when the Bahrain Victorious flew past him. But he managed to get into Bauhaus’ slipstream, and overtake him at the line.

Stage 1 winner Pascal Ackermann (Bora-Hansgrohe) was third and held onto the overall race lead. 

Amid rainy weather and undulating terrain that made life difficult for the pure sprinters, this was the kind of stage that the veteran Kristoff has always thrived in, and he made the most of the circumstances to claim his first win of the season, and his first since triumphing in Nice at the beginning of last year’s Tour de France. 

“I like to race in Germany,” said Kristoff at the finish. “I have a lot of my wins in this country. I won a stage here last time [in 2019], and had good memories from that. 

“Today it was good conditions for me. In Nice [where he won the Tour de France stage last year] it was conditions like this with the rain, so I usually race quite well in these conditions, even if I don’t really enjoy it. After the race when you’ve won, then you enjoy it, so I’m very happy now.

“I’ve been waiting a long time [to win]. I did not have a good season this year. I was close at the Arctic [Race of Norway] and at the Tour of Norway, so to get the win now finally was a nice feeling.” 

Bystrom played a huge role in the victory, setting such a fast pace around the corner that he, Kristoff, Bauhaus and Ackermann opened up a gap over the rest of the peloton. 

“It was really technical,” said Kristoff of the finish. “I knew I needed to be in the top five in the last corners in the last kilometre. I got in a good position and then Bystram was with me, and he led out the sprint, so I actually started off first, and Bauhaus came around me quite fast. But I managed to get his wheel, and he kind of faded over the flat drag into the finish line, and I managed to just get around him again. 

“I was really happy to see that I managed to push my bike in front. It was really close, I was not 100% sure if I took it, but I saw the pictures later.”

How it unfolded

Although not as windy as yesterday to begin with, the weather for the second stage of the Tour of Germany was not pleasant, with rain making for wet roads.

Several riders went down during the day as a result, including big names like Remi Cavagna (Deceuninck-QuickStep), Ben O’Conor (Ag2r Citroen) and Andre Greipel (Israel-StartUp Nation), and three riders were hurt badly enough to have to abandon: Rick Zabel (Israel Start-Up Nation), Nathan Brown (Rally Cycling) and Jan Hugger (Lotto-Kern Haus).

Being out ahead in the break was safer than in the congested peloton, and five riders successfully did so at the start of the stage: Marc Soler (Movistar), Louis Vervaeke (Alpecin-Fenix), Francisco Galavan (Equipo Kern Pharma), Jannis Peter (Rad-Net Rose Team) and Kyle Murphy (Rally Cycling).

Soler was the headline name in the group and, given the terrain, the most surprising. His intention for the day were hard to fathom for a man who might be a GC contender, especially when he contested and won the intermediate sprint halfway into the stage, despite there being no bonus seconds available. 

Murphy’s priority was the mountains classification, and he took the maximum points ahead of Vervaeke and Peter on the first climb of the day, the Kyffhäuser. 

Bora-Hansgrohe kept the break on a leash, not giving them any real hope of being able to stay clear to the finish. 

An increase in pace from P&S Metalltechnik as the wind picked up saw the gap come down to under one minute at about 50km from the finish, and also managed to cause a split in the peloton and drop several riders out of the peloton, including, surprisingly, national star Emanuel Buchmann (Bora-Hansgrohe). 

With the break now in danger of being caught early, Vervaeke broke clear from the other four. Those four were imminently caught 44km from the finish, after which P&S Metalltechnik instigated the next part of their unusual plan, with Immenuel Stark attacking the peloton. 

Vervaeke was still the best part of half a minute up the road, meaning Stark faced some challenge to bridge across by himself, and Stark was unable to reduce the deficit.

With P&S Metalltechnik no longer working at the front, the peloton eased up, and Vervaeke’s lead was allowed to grow back up to nearly two minutes, with Stark left in-between in no-man’s land. 

Stark was eventually caught 25km from the finish after the peloton upped the pace again through Bahrain-Victorious. Vervaecke nevertheless still had a lead in excess of one minute by the top of the last categorised climb of the day, the Unterpörlitz, although Murphy managed to break out of the peloton to take second-place, meaning the two are now level at the top of the King of the Mountains.

Vervaeke’s lead was down to 50 seconds by the time he crossed the finish line for the first time, to begin two laps of the finishing circuit. 

Accelerations were made in the peloton on an uncategorised but difficult drag at the beginning of the circuit, including one from Dylan Teuns (Bahrain Victorious), but the peloton remained together. 

This action reduced Vervaeke’s lead to just a handful of seconds, and the catch was made 7.5 km from the finish, just as the bell was rung for the beginning of the last lap. 

Bahrain-Victorious’ continued to set a fierce pace the second time on the uphill drag through Hermann Pernsteiner and Marco Haller. Once again there were multiple attacks, with Rasmus Tiller (Uno-X) and Nils Politt (Bora-Hansgrohe) threatening to go clear, but neither succeeded.

Georg Zimmermann (Intermarche-Wanty-Gobert) managed to take the 3 bonus seconds on offer at the top of the rise, and managed to gain a small gap over the rest of the peloton along with Dylan Teuns (Bahrain-Victorious).

This pair dangled just a few bike-lengths ahead of the peloton for several kilometres, but were eventually brought back just before the final kilometre.

Bahrain Victorious then concentrated on leading out Bauhaus for his sprint, but it was UAE Team Emirates who took control of the peloton at just the right time to set Kristoff up for victory.