Team RBBH showed their strength in Rogaška Slatina

The first stage of the 32nd Tour of Slovenia ended with a sprint by a small group of cyclists, completely dominated by members of the German team Red Bull – BORA – hansgrohe. Laurence Pithie from New Zealand won the 141.3-kilometer stage from Velenje to Rogaška Slatina, while the best Slovenian was Tilen Finkšt (Solution Tech Nippo Rali) in eighth place.

The first chapter developed according to the expected scenario, with a breakaway of a small group of cyclists who won everything at the intermediate finishes, and an attack by the big teams in the final part of the stage. The Red Bull - BORA – hansgrohe team celebrated a double victory thanks to Pithie and Arne Marit, while Edoardo Zambanini from the Bahrain Victorious team was third. The New Zealander will race in green tomorrow and also leads the points classification. Tomáš Přidal (Team United Shipping) won the only mountain finish of the race and finished in the time of the stage winner, so he will wear the Lidl mountain classification jersey tomorrow. Czech riders is also leading the young riders classification.

Laurence Pithie after the race: "Team was incredible, they really set up that perfectly for me. We went hard on the climb with 30 kilometres to go, Jan did a really hard pace and we managed to get rid of a lot of the pure sprinters. We watch how Groenewegen won here back in 2023 when there were more sprinters here. We tried to make it harder for the rest, that was our plan and worked out perfectly. Then Jan, Mattia, Florian and Giulio did a great job, and Ben also rode from the start all day. And Arne finished together with me. This was a team victory!”

Tilen Finkšt (Solution Tech Nippo Rali) also showed off his skills with eighth place: “It was true that the original plan was for Rajovič to sprint, but things change quickly in a race. Everyone can have a bad day or a crash, so we have to have several plans ready. If plan A doesn't work, we go with plan B. The pace on the last climb was really killer, and the heat didn't spare us much either. The Red Bull team had a strong pace all day, one of our guys also helped, it was important to stay in a good position because in the last part it was constantly going left-right and up-down. After a few years, I came to Rogaška Slatina with the leaders, in the end they went on the left, and I was a little stuck on the right. That's how it is in a sprint, sometimes you win, sometimes everything doesn't go according to plan.”

Jakob Omrzel (Bahrain Victorious) also finished with the first group, and he will certainly try to confuse the crowd at the very top on the upcoming climbs.

The second stage from Radlje ob Dravi to Ormož will be 181.8 kilometers long and will follow the Drava cycling path. The start will be at 11.35.

Foto: Sportida.com, video: Televizija Slovenija