Tim Merlier (Soudal-QuickStep) erupted in the final 100 metres of stage 5 to claim his third victory of the week at the Tour de Hongrie. Jakob Söderqvist (Lidl-Trek) survived the windy day into Veszprém after crashing in the final 20km and secured the overall title.
Riding in the green points classification jersey, Merlier left no doubts as he sprang away lead-out man Alberto Dainese on the right side of the wide course to win the bunch sprint for a hat-trick. Alexis Renard (Cofidis) finished in second and Fernando Gaviria (Caja Rural-Seguros RGA) in third, with Dainese locking up fourth.
“It was a good week for us, with three stage victories and a nice GC result. Today we were able to try multiple times with different riders and we can be happy with the outcome,” stage winner Merlier said, referencing Junior Lecerf who finished in fourth on GC.
Söderqvist held a 40-second advantage over Benoît Cosnefroy (UAE Team Emirates) on the final day, with Luke Plapp (Jayco-AlUla) another 12 seconds back. The Swede did a lot of the work with his Lidl-Trek teammates to watch moves by the challengers, a final one by Plapp taking more than 10km to shut down.
He held on to the overall title, with Cosnefroy solidifying second by just nine seconds over Plapp. It was the first men’s elite GC title of Söderqvist’s career.
How it unfolded
The fifth and final day of racing featured sporadic rain yet again, but later sunshine for a change, with the course offering three intermediate sprints and five categorised climbs across 147.1km. An opening circuit of 30.2km, completed twice,…
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