Jonathan Milan continues perfect start to 2026 with stage 2 victory at AlUla Tour

Jonathan Milan (Lidl-Trek) romped his way to victory on stage 2 of the AlUla Tour, taking back-to-back victories and continuing his perfect start to 2026.

Whilst echelons were a feature of the stage, there was a more traditional bunch sprint, compared to the reduced group finish from the opening stage. Milan, sporting the green jersey as race leader, had to work hard in the finale as he briefly lost the wheel of his leadout train before the flamme rouge.

However, he quickly regained contact, and the Italian was expertly placed into a prime position by his teammates to sprint, and just like the opening stage, the outcome was the same, a comfortable victory for Milan, marking the 27th win of his career. Fellow Italian Daniel Skerl (Bahrain-Victorious) ended in second with Pascal Ackermann (Jayco AlUla) taking third.

A five-man group formed the early breakaway, featuring Federico Iacomoni (Team Ukyo), Mohammed Al-Wahibi (Oman), Said Alrahbi (Oman), Zhe Yie Kee (Terengganu Cycling Team), and Muhammad Nur Aiman Bin Rosli (Terengganu Cycling Team).

As soon as the television broadcast kicked off with 80km to go, the peloton began to fracture due to echelons, and just as was the case yesterday, Jonathan Milan (Lidl-Trek) was in the front split. After multiple crashes on the opening stage, Jan Christen’s fortunes were different this time around as he was also among those up front in the 20-man leading group.

The group’s advantage over the larger peloton never really extended beyond much more than 0:30, and for a long spell was around 0:10. Eventually, the two groups reconnected with 40km remaining and the calm was restored for now.

With a moment of calm within the peloton, Stefan De Bod (Modern Adventure Pro Cycling) and Mathias Bregnhøj (Terengganu Cycling Team) decided to spice things up by launching an opportunistic attack, and quickly built their gap to over 0:30, but would be caught before the finale.

Christen won the intermediate sprint through the penultimate passage of the finish line with 10km remaining, taking three bonus seconds. Kevin Vermaerke (UAE Team Emirates-XRG) and Bjorn Koerdt (Picnic-PostNL) picked up two and one second, respectively.

Phil Bauhaus (Bahrain-Victorious) suffered a mechanical with 6km remaining, ruling the German sprinter out of contention, and just over a kilometre later, Fabio Jakobsen (Picnic-PostNL) was distanced from the peloton with what looked like cramp.

Lidl-Trek had positioned themselves at the front, and Milan was briefly left behind before the flamme rouge, but the Italian quickly rejoined his teammates and was poised and ready for a sprint, which he dominated.