Magnus Cort (Uno-X Mobility) won the uphill sprint on Monday in Col de la Loge, overtaking Bruno Armirail (Decathlon AG2R La Mondiale) with 150 meters to go. Rounding out the podium were Primož Roglič (Bora-Hansgrohe) and Matteo Jorgensen (Visma-Lease a bike). Along with winning the stage, Cort took the yellow jersey and now leads the GC with a 4 second lead over Primoz Roglič.
At the finish, Cort was pleased to have nabbed the win, especially after the difficult start to his season. “I didn’t have the best start of the season, I struggled a little bit or didn’t get any big results and then I had an injury in Tirreno and was out for a long time. It’s amazing to come back and take a stage win here.”
How it happened
In the first 5km of the race, a group of five riders broke away. This group included Bruno Armirail (Decathlon AG2R La Mondiale), Mathis Le Berre (Arkéa-B&B Hotels), Jonas Gregaard (Lotto Dstny), Xandro Meurisse (Alpecin-Deceuninck), and Filippo Conca (Q36.5 Pro Cycling). They quickly grew their gap to 4 minutes.
With 65 kilometers remaining, the peloton sprang into action as teams like Israel-Premier Tech, Ineos Grenadiers, and Bora-Hansgrohe began to chase down the leaders. However, the breakaway had a lot of firepower left in them and the peloton struggled to reel them in.
With 25 kilometers to go, as they approached the three-part final climb, the gap was still 2’45” and it appeared questionable as to whether or not the peloton would be successful in catching the breakaway.
On the climb, the peloton managed to reduce the gap and caught the break with 9km to go, however, Bruno Armirail (Decathlon AG2R La Mondiale) was still out front, having broken away from the group, and hada good 30″ gap with 5km remaining.
Bora-Hansgrohe came to the front and attempted to close the gap, but Armirail was not about to give up, and with 1km to go he still had 19 seconds and looked certain of winning. Uno-X then came to the front and launched an impressive lead out for Magnus Cort enabling him to pass Armirail and take the win ahead of Roglič and Jorgensen.
RESULTS
Stage 2: Gannat > Col de la Loge (142km)
Results powered by FirstCycling.com
