Just as Junior Lecerf (Soudal-QuickStep) appeared to have lost the Czech Tour overall on the final climb, the rider who was set to snatch victory from him at the last, Cian Uijtdebroeks (Visma-Lease a Bike), completely faded, handing the win back to Lecerf in a dramatic finale.
Uijtdebroeks had stormed away from the race leader on the final climb to Pustevny, building a lead close to 20 seconds and holding it into the final kilometre. But his legs began to fail as the finish approached, and he was caught by the Lecerf-led chase group just metres before the line.
After around 70km of racing on the final stage of the Czech Tour, heading out of Kroměříž to Pustevny, a 12-man group got away ahead of the first lap up what would be the finishing climb to Pustevny to form the breakaway. They had a four-minute lead with just under 100km remaining.
It was made up of stage 3 winner Liam Walsh, Cameron Scott (CCACHE x BODYWRAP), Nicolò Garibbo (UKYO), Šimon Vaníček (ATT Investments), Michal Schuran (United Shipping), Michael Boroš (Elkov-Kasper), Patryk Stosz (Voster ATS), Loïc Bettendorff (Hrinkow Advarics), Michiel van Vliet, Viego Tijssen (Metec – SOLARWATT p/b Mantel), Ondřej Pokorný (TUFO-Pardus Prostějov) and Dominik Amann (Vorarlberg).
On the first of two ascents of the Pustevny (5.5km at 7.5%), two riders dropped the front group, while the escapees’ advantage shrank from a maximum of four minutes to hover around the 2-minute mark inside of 50km to go.
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