Author: Henri Giroud

Tadej Pogačar returns to savor the taste of victory and does it on his home roads, winning the 3rd stage of the Tour of Slovenia, 144.6 km from Zalec to Celje. As happened on Wednesday on the occasion of Rafal Majka’s success, the winner of two Tour de France titles pounced from afar, attacking from the group together with his Polish teammate 23 km from the line: the UAE Team Emirates duo stormed the 2nd category ascent of Svetina (5.2 km at 7.7% average gradient), gaining a good margin on the chasers. After taking the descent, without risking too much,…

Report Nico Denz put in a huge performance on stage 6 of the Tour de Suisse to take his first WorldTour win and the team’s second stage victory of the week so far. Having forced the winning move from the day’s breakaway on the lower slopes of the final climb to the finish, Denz out-sprinted those still in contention in the finale and, despite having to wait for confirmation of the photo finish, was rewarded with the stage victory. Having made the early breakaway of 12 riders, Denz rode smartly on the long final climb to finish, tracking the moves…

Report In yet again high temperatures, the riders set off on the 190 km long route between Ambri and Novazzano. The final 75 km presented some short but steep climbs before the final uphill to the finish. Early on, the peloton let a five-man breakaway go and the lead soon stretched to over seven minutes. After the last of the escapees was caught about 15km from the line, there were several attacks on the final round of the Pedrinate climb and the peloton was reduced to about 15 riders, including Bora-Hansgrohe’s Aleks Vlasov, Maximilian Schachmann, Felix Großschartner and Sergio Higuita.…

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Report He’s back. Or at least, it’s great to see him win again. Results Results powered by FirstCycling.com

Report On the hunt for stage wins at the Tour de Suisse this week, Team DSM and Andreas Leknessund delivered on their promise of aggressive racing as Leknessund powered to a brilliant solo win from the breakaway. Faced with more hilly terrain on stage two, the team rode well at the start of the day to get Leknessund into the break of ten which would go on to fight for the win. Sensing a moment to push on as the pace slowed, Leknessund launched a stinging attack and broke clear from the rest of the break inside 18 kilometres remaining.…

Report Team Jumbo-Visma showed from the start that they had big plans. A group of fifteen riders never got more than a two-minute lead. The black-and-yellow brigade appeared with several riders at the foot of the final climb and opened the throttle once more. After Christophe Laporte, Chris Harper, Tiesj Benoot and green points jersey winner Wout van Aert had done their work, it was Steven Kruijswijk’s turn. On the day’s last climb, the Dutchman rode at a scorching pace for kilometres on end and several riders from the now depleted peloton had to let go. A few kilometres from…

Report Stevie Williams won his first World Tour race. The 26-year-old Welshman surprised almost everyone with a reduced bunch sprint win where he outsprinted Max Schachmann (Bora-hansgrohe) and Andreas Kron (Lotto Soudal) after a 177km race around the Kusnacht region. The loops were hilly, and the temperatures reached 30 degrees, which took a toll on some riders. The initial breakaway of 7 had a max lead of 4 minutes. The breakaway was shedding during the stage, and the last rider was caught with 9km to go, just before the final climb where Evenepoel (Quick-Step Alpha Vinyl Team), Vlasov (Bora-hansgrohe), and…