Tour of Slovakia: Groves wins prologue

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Kaden Groves (Team BikeExchange) took his first victory of the 2021 season and the overall race lead, winning the prologue of the Tour of Slovakia, a 1.6km, pan-flat course through the streets of central Košice.

On such a short course, the time gaps separating the riders were miniscule; Groves' winning time of 1:50.46 was a mere 0.32seconds faster than second-placed Jannik Steimle (Deceuninck Quickstep), the defending champion of this race. The long-time virtual leader Marceli Boguslawski (Mazowsze Serce Polski) rounded out the podium, finishing with a time of 1:51.37.

The explosive nature of the course lent itself to the attributes possessed by sprinters. As well as Groves, Cees Bol (Team DSM), Alvaro Hodeg (Deceuninck-Quickstep) and, much to the delight of his home crowd, Peter Sagan (Bora Hansgrohë) all finished in the top ten.

"It's a big relief," Groves said at the finish, "it's been a long day today waiting for my turn. I was last to go in my team and I just listened to the guys who went before and did what they said. I'm very happy to come away with the win today. The start and the corner were the most important sections of the course. Kicking out of that last corner and you needed to save a little bit on the start just to come home strong, I did that and I came home strong. It's my first time in Slovakia, it's really good to be here and I'm really keen for the rest of the week."

How it unfolded

As the last stage race before the UCI World Championships, the organisers of the Tour of Slovakia have made every effort to design a course that mimics that of the men's road race in Flanders next week. After the prologue, the peloton will tackle four stages across largely hilly terrain as they cross from one side of Slovakia to the other.

Following the team presentation in front of large crowds who had flocked to see the race and, most of all, a certain Peter Sagan embarking on his home tour for the first time, the prologue began. Taking place on the long main streets of the city centre, on a perfectly straight course except for one 180-degree turn, it offered more of a test of pure speed than any technical challenges.

Of the early starters, Frederik Madsen (Uno-X Pro Cycling Team) proved the fastest, completing the course in 1:52.78, a full four seconds faster than anyone else had at this point.  Restrictions on the equipment- disc wheels and time-trial bikes were prohibited in this prologue- perhaps levelled the playing field between the WorldTour teams and the other teams present. Indeed, Madsen's time remained unchallenged by the first half of the peloton- WorldTour, ProContinental and Continental teams alike.

Only Maciej Bodnar (Bora-Hansgrohe), a rider renowned for his time-trialling ability- could surpass him and he set a new best time of 1:52.14. Just three riders later, however, Marceli Boguslawski (Mazowsze Serce Polski) leapfrogged Bodnar into the hotseat with a time of 1:51.37.

Boguslawski's time seemed good enough for victory; contenders for the overall classification such as Jai Hindley (Team DSM) and Alexey Lutsenko were unable to threaten his position as the virtual race leader.

Amongst the last few riders to start was Chris Froome (Israel Start-Up Nation) and as he passed by, the crowd held aloft their phones and cameras in an attempt to capture the time they saw the four-time Tour de France winner just metres in front of their lenses. As attentions and the TV cameras were focused on Froome, Groves slipped past, almost unnoticed, to record a new best time of 1:50.46.

A nervous wait ensued for Groves as Steimle, the last rider to set off, rolled down the start ramp with such ferocity he seemed likely to at least challenge for the win. Ultimately, though, Steimle crossed the line agonisingly short and finished 0.32seconds behind Groves.

As the winner of the first stage, the yellow, green, white and polka-dot jerseys all technically belong to Groves. Only the jersey worn by the best Slovak rider was unclaimed by him; Sagan, fittingly the Slovak national champion, will wear this tomorrow.