Mathieu Kockelmann (Luxembourg) claimed a stunning victory in the bunch sprint on stage 2 of the Tour of Luxembourg, out-pacing Andrea Vendrame (Decathlon AG2R La Mondiale) and Tom Donnenwirth (Groupama-FDJ).
Marijn van den Berg (EF Education-EasyPost) opened the sprint hoping to snatch the race lead from stage 1 winner Romain Grégoire (Groupama-FDJ), but missed the bonus seconds after fading to fifth.
Grégoire continues as race leader, with Vendrame moving into second on the same time as Van den Berg, with March Hirschi (Tudor Pro Cycling) in fourth at six seconds.
In the opening kilometres, a seven-rider breakaway went clear with Baptiste Gillet (Arkéa-B&B Hotels), Jonas Geens (Flanders Baloise), Victor Papon (Wagner Bazin WB), Loïc Bettendorff (Hrinkow Advarics), Pedro Pinto (Efapel), Morang Mil (Luxembourg) and Malte Hellerup (Coloquick) making the move.
Their lead reached over four minutes in the first hour and then gradually fell over the final 100 kilometres. Hellerup was the first rider dropped on the Montée de Mariendallerhaff with 43km to go.
Then, 10 kilometres later, Morang let go before they entered the two 15km finishing circuits. With just 42 seconds on the peloton, Pinto was the next dropped with 28km to go as the escapees began to feel the pressure.
The four remaining riders worked together but couldn’t hold off the Alpecin-Deceuninck-led chase. At the bell with 15km to go, the peloton could see the quartet and came through the line 25 seconds behind them.
Knowing the catch was inevitable, the peloton stepped off the gas for a few moments but sped back up and caught the four riders inside 5km to go.
EF Education-EasyPost led into the final kilometre for Van den Berg but were overtaken by Decathlon AG2R La Mondiale. However, Van den Berg wasn’t waiting for the final 200 metres and hit out early hoping the slightly downhill sprint would be in his favour.
But with a headwind, the move was the wrong decision, and he faded, letting Kockelmann…
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