Cort nabs opening Tour of Denmark stage

Image 1 of 19

Magnus Cort Nielsen (Team Cult Energy) took the biggest victory of his young career today as the 20-year-old Dane won the opening stage and donned the leader's jersey at his home Tour of Denmark.

Cort won the 180km stage from Silkeborg to Varde out of a three-man break, with Nikola Aistrup (Team Concordia Forsikring-Riwal) second and Lars Bak (Lotto Belisol) third. Bryan Coquard (Europcar) took the sprint for fourth at 10 seconds ahead of Sacha Modolo (Bardiani Valvole-CSF Inox), the Italian fast man fresh off of winning six stages at China's Tour of Qinghai Lake.

With time bonuses factored in Cort holds a one-second lead over Aistrup on general classification with Bak in third at seven seconds.

Magnus Cort as well as stage 1 runner-up Nikola Aistrup were part of the day's early six-man break which also included Pim Ligthart (Vacansoleil-DCM), Markus Kilsgaard and Jimmi Sørensen (Team Post Danmark) plus Frederik Plesner (Team Tre-For).

After 39km of racing the six leaders enjoyed a 3:15 advantage over the peloton and ever so steadily for the remainder of the stage that gap would come down. The break made it through a two-kilometre long section of gravel road unscathed, while the peloton was conversely disrupted by multiple punctures. At 86km into the opening stage the break's lead stood at 2:45 and by kilometre 115 their lead had slipped inside of two minutes.

Belkin and Omega Pharma-QuickStep had been doing the bulk of the chasing in the peloton and with 20km remaining Garmin-Sharp as well as Team Saxo-Tinkoff pitched in to the chase effort.

The stage finale consisted of three laps of a 3.4km finishing circuit and the peloton was bearing down on the break upon entering the loop. Aistrup attacked the break and rode alone in the lead while just prior to the peloton reaching the circuits Lars Bak had jumped away from the field and soon bridged to the escape group. The much fresher Bak kept his foot on the gas with only Cort able to keep pace while the rest of the escapees were swept up by the peloton.

Under the impetus of Bak, the chasing duo caught Aistrup on the final circuit and the Lotto Belisol Dane kept driving the pace through to the finish.

The two Continental riders, however, got the best of Bak in the sprint as Cort and Aistrup had enough left to outkick their Lotto Belisol compatriot on the streets of Varde with Cort taking a hard-fought victory.

Full Results