Uphill stages prove beneficial for Croatian competitors
Italian cyclists Mauro Finetto (Unieuro Wilier) win stage 2 of the Tour of Slovakia, driven from Banska Bystrica to Štrbske Pleso with a distance of 170.1 kilometres, reports Ipazin.net on June 10, 2016. In the final sprint he had more strength over six cyclists and over passed Russian Kirill Podzniakov (Synergy Baku) and Ukranian Vitaliy Buts (Kolss BDS) by a bicycle length. This win puts Finetto in the overall lead, while Pazin cyclists were excellent again, showing off their uphill skills. Antonio Santoro entered as number 6, while Matteo Rabottini as number 10, trailing the winner by 1,52 minutes.
Along with Kišerlovski and Mucelli, these two made great strides in the overall standings, as all are in the top 30 at the moment, with another climbing stage ahead of them that can see even further advances. A large advancement was also made in the team standings where they are currently sixth among 23 teams.
This toughest stage had five mountain finishes, with the one in Štrbske Pleso of category 1, had a very odd course when already after fifteen kilometres a group including Norwegian Ken Eikelend (Fixlt.no), Austrian Helmu Trettwer (WSA Greenlife) and Australian Hamish Schreurs (Klein Constantia) broke off and holding a lead of 12 minutes over 100 kilometres. The advantage began to melt then, but 30 kilometres before the finish line another group of four broke off, including the winning trio, merging with the runaways and primarily due to the inactivity of the peloton managed to enter the finish by itself.
