Tour de Luxembourg: Mads Pedersen tops Mathieu van der Poel on stage 2 sprint

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Mads Pedersen (Lidl-Trek) prevailed in the bunch sprint on stage 2 of the Tour de Luxembourg, holding off race leader Mathieu van der Poel (Alpecin-Deceuninck) in Schifflange. Swiss rider Robin Froidevaux (Tudor Pro Cycling) was third on the stage.

Van der Poel extended his lead in the general classification, not being threatened by Pedersen, who finished eight minutes down on the opening stage. With Froidevaux out-sprinting Christophe Laporte (Visma-Lease a Bike), the Frenchman's deficit to Van der Poel went out to 10 seconds. Andreas Kron (Lotto Dstny) continues in third place at 12 seconds.

Pedersen's victory made up for the loss of the team's GC leader Mattias Skjelmose, who crashed out of the race during the stage.

"We lost Skjelmose today and the plan was to do the GC for him," Pedersen said. "At least now we can leave with a stage win, but of course, we want to have more. Tomorrow is a really hard day and it doesn't suit me but Quinn [Simmons] is doing really well and is in good shape so we'll try to set him up for something nice tomorrow."

Pepijn Reinderink (Soudal-Quickstep) went on the attack early in the stage in pursuit of more points in the mountains classification, taking Alexandre Kess (Luxembourg) along for the ride until taking maximum points atop the hors-categorie Montée de Steinsel, at which point Reinderink sat up, leaving Kess to hold off the peloton alone.

The Luxembourger's gap hovered around two minutes until the final 40 kilometres, when the peloton entered a crosswind section and the pace ramped up, very quickly bringing Kess to within 30 seconds. Knowing it would be an easy catch, the bunch hovered just behind until catching the lone escapee with 31.5 km to go.

As the race reached the final 25 kilometres, Carl Fredrik Hagen (Q36.5) launched an attack on the climb in the first local circuit and claimed the three-second time bonus at the start of the final lap. But he was passed by Victor Vercouillie (Flanders-Baloise), who launched a powerful counter-attack with 19km to go.

Reinderink went off in solo pursuit on the penultimate climb as Vercouillie enjoyed nearly a minute's lead over the peloton, and the Quickstep rider closed in quickly, catching the Belgian with 13.8km remaining. They conspired to hold a 10-second lead heading into the final eight kilometres but Lidl-Trek were in full pursuit.

Sensing the danger of being caught, Reinderink attacked with 6km to go, leaving Vercouillie behind. A crash in the chasing peloton did little to disrupt the furious chase, and a split peloton caught the escapees ahead of the final climb with 4.3km remaining.

Juan Ayuso (UAE Team Emirates) put in a powerful counter-attack on the final climb, and while the move didn't stick, it further reduced the lead group. Lidl-Trek led into the twisting, turning final two kilometres.

Pedersen opened up the sprint early and while Van der Poel was on his wheel, he couldn't come around and had to concede the stage to the Dane.

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