Tour de Hongrie: Mark Cavendish takes sensational stage 2 sprint victory

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Mark Cavendish was the fastest in the bunch sprint, winning stage 2 in Kazincbarcika at the Tour de Hongrie. Astana Qazaqstan delivered Cavendish into the final 200 metres with a textbook lead out and the Manxman launched his sprint to take the win, holding off runner-up Dylan Groenewegen (Team Jayco AlUla) and third-placed Jon Aberasturi (Euskaltel-Euskadi).

"I'm really happy with it," Cavendish said following the stage finish. "Yesterday, we didn't quite hit the lead-out properly. It was super good, and everyone committed 100% yesterday, but we were just a bit eager and a bit too soon. 

"We talked and talked about that to rectify it today. It was a completely different finish today, no big boulevard or corners to make it technical, and we executed it exactly how we wanted it. I'm so happy."

Martin Voltr (Pierre Baguette Cycling) started the day in second place overall but moved into the general classification lead after spending most of the day in the breakaway and gaining valuable time bonus seconds. Voltr now leads the race five seconds ahead of Cavendish and Welsford.

Groenewegen also initially appeared to have leapt up the overall, but was then given a 10-second penalty and a 20% points deduction for obstructing the sprint of another rider, though he still retained his second on the stage. Welsford, who was the rider dispatched from Cavendish's wheel by the move from Groenewegen in the sprint, then hit a curb and punctured so was also given the same time as the winner due to what race organisers said was a "mechanical problem in the last 3 kilometers".

How it unfolded

The second stage at the Tour de Hongrie was a 162.1km race from Tokaj to Kazincbarcika. The route offered two category 3 ascents, the first at 32km into the race over Erdobenye, followed by three intermediate sprints, and the final climb at the 137km mark over Tardona.

A breakaway of four emerged ahead of the first climb, including Siebe Deweirdt (Team Flanders-Baloise), Zsolt Istlstekker (Epronex-Hungary Cycling Team), Christian Bagatin (Team MBH Bank Colpack Ballan), and Martin Voltr (Pierre Baguette Cycling), runner-up in the overall classification.

The quartet maintained a gap of 2:35 into the second half of the stage as teams Bora-Hansgrohe and Jayco AlUla set the pace at the front of the peloton. But the gap dropped to under two minutes and then under a minute to just 45 seconds as the breakaway raced toward the final ascent over Tardona.

Bagatin surged ahead of his breakaway companions on the climb, gaining a slim 10 seconds on Deweirdt, Istlstekker and Voltr. The Italian still held 55 seconds on the peloton as they swept up the remaining breakaway riders with 20km to go.

Bagatin's gap dropped to 20 seconds as the peloton made the gentle descent toward Kazincbarcika and he was caught with 8km to go as the sprinters' teams began organising their lead-out trains.

Astana, Lidl-Trek and Euskaltel-Euskadi led the peloton into the last two kilometres. But Astana was the dominant team in the last kilometre and with 500 metres to go, bringing Cavendish to the finish with a perfect lead-out to take the victory.

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