Tour Colombia 2.1: Molano wins stage 2

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Juan Sebastian Molano (UAE Team Emirates) picked up where his teammate Fernando Gaviria left off, winning the stage 2 sprint in Tour Colombia 2.1 in Duitama with an impressive burst of speed to hold off Alvaro Hodeg (Deceuninck-Quickstep) and Itamar Einhorn (Israel Start-Up Nation).

The Colombian brought the team's tally of victories this season to eight after Gaviria's trio of stages in San Juan and Tadej Pogacar's two stages and overall victory in Valencia.

"It was a good day and I had very good legs today," Molano said in the brief post-stage press conference. "It's an important victory for me after a difficult year, and this will help to keep the team trusting me – trusting me mentally."

Molano was suspended for a time by UAE Team Emirates in 2019 after internal testing turned up some "seemingly unusual physiological results" and he was pulled out of the Giro d'Italia after stage 3. He returned to racing in July and went on to finish the Vuelta a España.

Hailing from nearby Paipa where the stage started, taking the stage win in front of his family, Molano said was "priceless".

"We knew that the biggest rival would be Hodeg, but Max [Richeze] led me flawlessly up to 200 meters from the finish and I was able to launch my sprint perfectly.

"I had the advantage of knowing all the roads really well as they are the ones I use for training, and adding to this the great work done by my teammates this is what helped seal the win."

EF Education First remained atop the general classification following their team time trial victory on stage 1, with Jonathan Caicedo in the race lead ahead of teammates Sergio Higuita and Dani Martinez.

Deceuninck-Quickstep led the peloton into the final kilometres, with Bob Jungels and Julian Alaphilippe taking massive pulls and then handing things off to Hodeg, but it was Molano's burst of speed that won the day as he swept past his fellow Colombian well before the line.

Einhorn tried to move out of the slipstream of Molano and Hodeg, but his route was temporarily blocked by his lead-out man Edwin Avila, who was going for a sprint result as well. Avila finished fifth behind Jhonatan Restrepo (Androni Giocattoli-Sidermec).

How it unfolded

The 152.4km second stage took the peloton from Paipa to Duitama. Although the small towns are not far apart geographically, the peloton took on four laps of a circuit to add on the kilometres. Stage 2 was the flattest of all the stages, with only a series of small, punchy climbs on offer to break up the pack.

There were no KOMs during the stage, but points were on offer for the sprint classification at 45.6km, 79.3km and 113km.

A breakaway of 10 riders escaped in the opening kilometres and the chase was on. In the move were Martin Urianstad (Uno X), Leandro Velardez (A. Virgen de Fátima), Matthieu Jeannes (Team Illuminate), Brayan Sánchez (Team Medellin), Aldemar Reyes (EPM Scott), Edison Muñoz (Orgullo Paisa), Vinicius Rangel (Brazil), Jorge Montenegro (Ecuador), Bayron Guamá (Ecuador) and Anderson Paredes (Venezuela).

The escapees built a gap of 3:25 while the chase started to take shape back in the peloton, and by the time the breakaway hit the first intermediate sprint, the gap was down to three minutes.

Sánchez took the sprint at 45.6km ahead of Urianstand and Guamá, and the breakaway riders went back to work to keep their gap Intact. Just over 40km later, however, the gap was down to 2:25 with 83km to go.

The breakaway shrunk to nine riders when Paredes suffered a puncture and dropped out of the group. The Venezuelan rider was soon back in the peloton.

Sánchez repeated his win at the 79.3km intermediate sprint, once again trailed by Urianstand and Guamá as the gap back to the peloton dipped to two minutes.  

At the final intermediate sprint of the day with 39.5km to go, Reyes claimed maximum points ahead of Guamá and Montenegro, but the breakaway started coming apart from there. With 10km to go the chase was almost over, as just three remaining breakaway riders dangled off the front.