Tour of Denmark: Groenewegen beats Cavendish to win stage 1

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Dylan Groenewegen (Jumbo-Visma) won the opening stage of the Tour of Denmmark, beating Mark Cavendish (Deceuninck-QuickStep) and Giacomo Nizzolo (Qhubeka-NextHash) to the line in Esbjerg.

The Dutchman, who returned from a nine-month ban this May, picked up his third win of the season after claiming two wins at the Tour de Wallonie.

Groenewegen's Jumbo-Visma teammates took control on the last of three laps of a 3.5km finishing circuit, with Mike Teunissen leading him through the crucial sweeping right-hand bend and onto the narrow finishing straight.

Groenewegen then opened up and opened up daylight between himself and Cavendish, who’d positioned himself on his rival’s wheel after losing lead-out man Michael Morkov to a late puncture.

Cavendish was never able to get up alongside Groenewegen, and nor was Nizzolo able to overhaul Cavendish on the slightly uphill drag to the line.

Groenewegen pulls on the first leader’s jersey of the race, which will run for four more stages.

Such was the nature of the final bend and the speed of the front three, a two-second gap was recorded between them and the next 14 riders, with GC favourite Remco Evenepoel (Deceuninck-QuickStep) clocked in a group at nine seconds.

How it unfolded

The 175.3km opening stage was almost pan-flat, with the two mountains classification points barely more severe than a speed bump, but exposed to the elements on the west coast of Denmark. The wind, however, wasn’t strong enough to split the race, and it ended up being a straight forward bunch sprint stage.

A five-man breakaway went clear from the gun, featuring Rasmus Wallin (Demark national team), Norbert Banaszek (HRE Mazowske Serce Polski), Frederik Jensen (BHS-PL Beton Bornholm) and the Sport Vlaanderen-Baloise duo of Ruben Apers and Aaron Van Poucke.

They built a lead of three minutes but were never allowed much rope as Jumbo-Visma, Deceuninck-QuickStep, and Qhubeka-NextHash controlled the peloton.

Banaszek claimed both intermediate sprints and the first mountains prize, with Jensen bagging the second, while Wallin attacked alone with 25km to try and earn the most active rider prize.

By that point, the peloton was just 20 seconds in arrears, and the remaining breakaway riders dropped back. Wallin continued out front until 15km to go, but was caught as Jumbo and QuickStep upped the tempo with the finishing circuit in sight.

Cavendish’s teammates, short of Morkov, took the reins for the first one and a half laps of the twisting 3.5km loop, with GC leader Remco Evenepoel staying up and out of trouble. After a couple of crashes further down the pack, Jumbo-Visma took control ahead of the final lap and produced what was a faultless lead-out from that point, with Edoardo Affini and Timo Roosen taking them into the final 500m before Teunissen provided Groenewegen with the perfect platform.

The Dutchman made no mistake from there, losing little of the gap he opened with his initial burst, and celebrating across the finish line.