Dylan Groenewegen (Jayco-AlUla) won the opening stage of the Tour of Slovenia, pipping Phil Bauhaus (Bahrain Victorious) to the line after the peloton caught a late attacking trio just 300 metres from the line in Rogaška Slatina.
The Dutchman’s Jayco-AlUla team had done much of the work on the front of the peloton throughout the 189.5km stage from Celje, and they were duly rewarded as their sprinter shot to his fifth win of the season.
Luka Mezgec led the peloton past Lucas Eriksson (Tudor), Alessandro Fedeli (Q36.5), who had been out front since the 18km to go mark, with Alessandro Tonelli (Green Project-Bardiani CSF-Faizanè) also caught after bridging across 6km later.
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He dropped Groenewegen off in the wind at 150 metres out, with only Bauhaus close to the Dutchman for the final dash to the line. Groenewegen had the beating of the German in the sprint, with Bauhaus hitting the wind at 75 to go but never managing to pull alongside the eventual winner.
Behind the lead duo, Matteo Moschetti (Q36.5) beat out Stanisław Aniołkowski (Human Powered Health) for third place.
"It was a really hard stage. Bora and Tudor decided to go on the attack on the climbs, and that made it really hard for a sprinter like me," Groenewegen said. "The team spent the whole day working to catch the break and bring me up into position. Then, in the end, we used the whole team to catch the breakaway. Luka did an amazing lead-out. He's really motivated. He did a training camp and is in good shape, and today he did a textbook lead-out."
Earlier in the day, the break had got away early, with Andrea Garosio (Eolo-Kometa), Samuele Zoccarato (Green Project-Bardiani CSF-Faizanè), Teo Pečnik (Kranj), Tomaš Kalojiros (RRK Group-Pierre Baguette-Benzinol), and Boštjan Murn (Adria Mobil) all making the move.
Garosio would seal the first mountains jersey of the race after leading across the only categorised climb of the stage, though the break largely disintegrated over the next 20km.
At 50km out, Murn went on the attack alone on hilly terrain, though he was caught with 35km to go, leaving Sebastian Schönberger (Human Powered Health) to counter.
The Austrian attained a modest gap until he was caught and passed by Eriksson and Fedeli on the hills late in the day at 18km to go. As Bora-Hansgrohe and then Bahrain Victorious contributed to Jayco-AlUla’s pacemaking behind, Tonelli was next to go, making it three out front 12km from the line.
The trio steadily built a lead of 15 seconds and counting heading into the final 10km, though with Bahrain Victorious working hard behind, their time in the lead would surely be numbered. They persevered, though, clinging on to their advantage well into the final kilometre.
It would take that late burst from Jayco-AlUla and Mezgec to put paid to their hopes of snatching the win from the sprinters, with the fastmen bursting past within sight of the line before Groenewegen grabbed the 68th win of his career and with it the race lead.
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