Tim Merlier (Soudal-QuickStep) sprinted to victory in the opening stage of the Tour de Hongrie. He beat Juan Sebastián Molano (UAE Team Emirates-XRG) and Phil Bauhaus (Bahrain Victorious) to the line in Békéscsaba to the line in a bunch sprint finish to end the 143km stage.
Soudal-QuickStep, UAE Team Emirates-XRG, and Jayco-AlUla led the way into the final of the flat opener shortly after the day’s two-man break was caught, while XDS-Astana also worked on the front in the final kilometres before QuickStep and UAE went head-to-head at the finish.
The opening stage of the 47th Tour of Hongrie took the peloton on a pan-flat route from Gyula to Békéscsaba featuring three long laps between the two towns. The stage was always destined to end in a bunch sprint, but that didn’t stop attacks going from the start.
Lidl-Trek riders Mathias Sunekær Norsgaard and Kristian Egholm got into the break of the day, the Danish duo racing clear to a two-minute advantage along the way.
Behind them, sprinters teams including Jayco-AlUla and Soudal-QuickStep controlled the peloton. At the second passage of the finish line, 54km from the line, the sprint squads had reduced the gap to 50 seconds in anticipation of the finish.
Along the way, Egholm led the race over the three intermediate sprints on the stage, handing him nine bonus seconds. Frenchman Benoît Cosnefroy (UAE Team Emirates-XRG) launched his GC bid, meanwhile, picking up a bonus second at the final sprint of the day.
Norsgaard and Egholm continued into the final 30km with a slightly increased gap of 1:05, but with QuickStep and UAE leading the charge behind, the break’s time was surely numbered.
The pair’s adventure came to an end with just over 10km left to…
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