Estonian wins kings mountain stage #video

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• Results after stage 1

• All stages on Tour of Slovenia

Finish – Golte (217,2 km):

16:57, last km: We’re in last kilometer. Looks like Estonian will the stage.

16:55: Estonian and Australian are still in the lead, first one is the one that dictates the pace.

16:51, 2 km till the finish: Rein Taaramäe (Est/Team Katusha) and Jack Haig (Avs/Orica GreenEDGE) are now alone in the lead.

16:49, 3 km till the finish: Rein Taaramäe (Est/ Team Katusha), Jack Haig (Avs/Orica GreenEDGE), Pavel Kochetkov (Rus/ Team Katusha) are in the lead. Their lead is not big.

16:47, 4 km till the finish: We’ll get a winner from a group of 12 cyclists, big attack was neutralized for now.

16:45: Five kilometers till the top, nothing is decided yet. Favorites are still waiting.

16.42, 6 km till the finish: Chasing group with all favorites has caught Columbian. 

16:38, 8 km till the finish: Columbian is still in the lead, Domen Novak (Slo/Adria Mobil) and Nicholas Dougall (RSA/Dimension Data) are behind him.

16:34, 9 km to the finish: Colombian Rodolfo Torres Agudelo (Androni Giocattoli) attacked and quickly went couple of hundredths of meters ahead.

16:31: Main group has caught all escapees. We expect attacks of the best now.

16:30: Luri Filosi is the only man up in the front, Preben van Hecke has given up.10 km till the top.

16:25, 14 km till the finish: Start of the finish climb!

16:20: Main group is slowly increasing its pace and the advantage of escapees is melting away. They will quickly caught up with the first duo, leaders van Hecke and Filosa still have gap of three minutes.

16:15: Two duos are not up in the front. Van Hecke and Filoso lead the race, Tratnik and Sterbini are behind them. Gap between them is two minutes and a half, main group is another minute behind.

16:05, 25 km till the finish: Duo Filoso/van Hecke has more that a minute lead ahead of Tratnik, Strebini is now between the main group and Slovenian. Strebini is about three minutes behind the leaders.

16.00: Jan Tratnik completely backed down, could be that he got this kind of instructions from his team. Duo Filosi and van Hecke is still in the lead. Main group is now very stretched out and lot of riders had fallen behind.

15:55: Looks like the leading trio has given up, it looks like they are not working together on the descent. Belgian went to get some water, Italian is few meters behind him, Jan Tratnik is further back. German Pfingsten left the race after hard crash.

15:50: Second hard climb is behind riders, decision of the stage winner will take place on the last climb to Golte. We got a team report that Christoph Pfingsten (Ger/Bora-Argon) has crashed. 

15:40, 3 km till the top of Črnivec: Leading trio is three minutes ahead of the main group, but we already see fighting there. Nils Politt (Team Katusha) and Simone Sterbini (Bardiani CSF) already jumped, favorites are completely calm for now.

15:30: Leading trio is already on the climb to Črnivec. They have five kilometers of climbing ahead of them. Main group is calm, which means that the breakaway also manage through this mountain finish and three riders will get more points for KOM competition.

15:20, 161 km: Leading trio (van Hecke, Tratnik and Filosi) are very close to the beginning of the climb to Črnivec (909 m.a.s.l.). Peleton will obviously start climbing four minutes later.

15:10: Cyclist will shortly arrive to the start of the second climb of the day, to the famous Črnivec. Escapees again have four minutes advantage ahead of main group

14:55, 140 km: Breakaway group now has just under four minutes lead on the main group. Race is again very peaceful, but that is just calm before the storm. We still have two outstanding climbs ahead of us, last one on Golte – finish of the stage is also there – is going to be especially hard. Incline on the hardest part of the climb is 23 percent.

14:25, 125 km: Leading trio is at Bezenci and has more than five minutes gap to the main group. Božič and de Ketele have given up with their chase and are waiting for group with yellow jersey.

Correction: Božič was not caught by the main group, he is now with de Ketele, another rider that dropped away from the leaders on the climb to Črni Vrh. They are on their way to Železniki and Škofja Loka and trying to get back with the leading trio. They are minute and a half behind.

14:10: Crazy ascent comes after top of Črni Vrh pass. De Ketele was the next “victim” after Božič and so only three riders are now in the lead – van Hecke, Tratnik and Filosi.

13:57: Breakaway group still has a lead of three minutes and 40 seconds. Božič is already in the main group. Mario Schoibl (Avt/Amplatz-BMC) has left the race.

13:47: Adria Mobil’s Jon Božič fell away from the leading group, pace is too hard for him.
Three kilometers left to the top.

13:45: Cyclist are already fighting towards the top of Črni vrh. Advantage of the breakaway is melting, they are only four minutes ahead.

13:40: Race director Bogdan Fink is sending a warning via race radio that the first kilometer of the descent is very dangerous. There is much sand on the road after yesterday storms.

13:30, 90 km: Easy times are over, first uphill of the day is about to start. Breakaway has five minutes gap before the climb to Črni vrh.

13:20: Filosi had problems with his bike, but he changed it and is now back with the other four cyclists in the breakaway. They are heading towards the first climb and have four minutes and 30 seconds lead on the peloton.

13:05: Gap between the leaders and the main group remains the same. Looks like nobody is pushing too hard since they know what is ahead of them, in the second half of today’s hard stage. They are closer and closer to first hard climb of the day – first category climb to Črni vrh (1013 m.a.s.l.) on 99th kilometer of the race. Average incline of this climb is 5,7 percent.

12:55, 67 km: Advantage of leading five riders (Tratnik, Božič, Filosi, de Ketele and van Hecke) has grown to almost five minutes (4:50).

12:45, 58 km: Van Hecke and de Ketele caught up with the leading trio. Five escapees now have a bigger gap of four minutes and 30 seconds.

12:30, 50 km: Topsport cyclist are only two minutes behind the leaders, they are now already one minute and 20 seconds in front of the main group.

12:25, 45 km: Peacefulness in the peloton was gone after a break from Topsport Vlaanderen - Baloise Belgian riders Kenny De Ketele and Preben Van Hecke; they are already in the pursue of leading trio.

12.15, 40 km: Everything is pretty calm for now. Escaping riders are still in the lead, but their gap is not growing anymore – they are still around three minutes ahead.

12:05: Three leading riders have over three minutes advantage on the peloton. Pace of the big group is dictated by teams Adria, Nippo-Vini Fantini and Tinkoff. 

Trije ubezniki v drugi etapi letosnjega @TourOfSlovenia. Kdo so? Preberite na @SiolSPORTAL. pic.twitter.com/na2VGHds4Y

— Simon Kavcic (@SimonKavcic) June 17, 2016

11:55, 27 km: Božič caught up with leading duo. Leading three riders are now on the super fast descent from Višnjevnik.

11:50: Two leaders are 20 seconds ahead of Božič, but already three minutes ahead of main group.

KOM competition – 3rd category mountain finish – Višnjevik (22 km):

11:40, 19 km: Filosi and Tratnik already have a minute gap ahead of peloton, Jon Božič is working very hard to catch them. Adria Mobil’s rider is about 30 seconds behind them.

11:35, 17 km: Italian Luri Filosi (Nippo–Vini Fantini) and Slovenian Jan Tratnik (Amplatz-BMC) are trying with an escape.

Intermediate sprint – Dobrovo (14,5 km):

11:30: First breakaway attempt with more than ten riders was unsuccessful. Peloton is in one piece, but it is spread out.

11.20, 6,5 km: Group is now on the slight uphill section and riders started to jump right away. For now nobody successfully.

11:15: Peloton is still together. None of the cyclist tried to escape yet, also because the road goes downhill from the start. We can expect to see an escape of a small group, similar like yesterday.

11:14, 2 km: Riders left Nova Gorica after the official start of the today’s race. We expect them on Golte around 4 p.m.

11:10: Peloton finished with the first kilometer, the race really starts now. One of the Meridiana cyclists had small problems with his bike, all other cyclists behaved like gentlemen and waited for him.

11:03: 138 cyclists started today’s stage. Davide Vigano and Žan Jerkič left the race after first stage.

11:00: Second stage of Tour of Slovenia has begun with closed ride in Nova Gorica; hardest mountain stage awaits. Official start of the race will be in couple of minutes.

Start – Nova Gorica

Today is important day for everybody that is looking towards the main prize on Tour of Slovenia. Stage is over 217 kilometers long, with start in Nova Gorica and finish on Golte.

Cyclist will have to overcome 3460 altitude meters, including climbs to Črni vrh and Črnivec. Hardest job awaits them on the end – 14 kilometers long climb to Golte. They will be very tired by that point, and length of the climb is not the only problem. Incline in last two kilometers goes up to 23 degrees. But the reward is worth the pain – yjersey that is currently on the shoulders of Belgian Jens Keukeleire.

Diego Ullisi

Who are the riders to look closely?

Italian team Lampre doesn’t hide ambitions for overall victory, their hopes lie in Diego Ulissi. Italian already won six stages on Giro d’Italia and took overall victory on Tour of Slovenia. That was in 2011, when he won the stage with the finish on Golte. It will be interesting to see what Gianni Moscon can do; Italian is member of Team Sky and one of the country’s biggest talents. Estonian Rein Taaramäe (Team Katusha) is also an excellent cyclist, among other he also took 11th overall on 2011 Tour de France.

Adria Mobil Cycling also has its own favorites that defend yellow jersey from 2015 edition, but Primož Roglič is not riding for them anymore. But their current riders already won this tour – Jure Golčer twice and Radoslav Rogina once. Young Domen Novak will also try to get very high. We also shouldn’t forget Jani Brajkovič that is getting back in right form after he had hearth surgery. He’s member of Slovenian national team for this race.