Wærenskjold wins Tour of Denmark stage 2 with blistering sprint
The Norwegian sprinter was imperious in the sprint finish on stage 2 of the Tour of Denmark gliding over the line to take his first win since Omloop Nieuwsblad. Mads Pedersen continues to lead the general classification after his victory on the opening day.
Søren Wærenskjold (UNO-X Mobility) won a messy, chaotic sprint in the suburbs of Copenhagen to take victory on stage 2 of the PostNord Tour of Denmark.
The Norwegian powerhouse was placed perfectly in the final, his teammates catching a late bid for glory before Wærenskjold rolled over the line, checking over his shoulder to check he’d won before celebrating.
Steffen De Schuyteneer (Lotto) was second and Axel Zingle (Visma | Lease a Bike third. Mads Pedersen finished ninth to retain the overall lead after he won Tuesday’s opening stage from a late breakaway.
It was a tense final, with breakaway only finally being caught with less than 3km of the 110km stage to go, with the wide roads making for a difficult-to-control finale.
It was a case of canny riding from UNO-X Mobility, as throughout the day Alpecin-Deceuninck, Picnic-PostNL and De Schuyteneer’s Lotto team had done much of the work holding the break at arm's length, burning matches in the process. The Scandinavian team only came to the front late on, giving them more resources in the final, hectic part of the race.
How it unfolded
Other than Thursday’s 14.3km time trial, stage 2 was the flattest of the whole race and, as such the most likely to end in a full bunch sprint. At only 110.5km, the race between Rødovre and Gladsaxe, just west of Denmark’s capital Copenhagen, was also the shortest road stage, the route looping north-west before heading back finishing the day with almost four complete laps of a suburban 4.8km circuit.
Perhaps because a bunch kick was almost inevitable, the race started in relatively leisurely style, the peloton rolling along at under 42kph for the opening 15km, before it exploded into life and finally a seven-man group headed up the road.
Rasmus Bøgh Wallin (UNO-X Mobility), Sebastian Nielsen (Unibet-Tietma Rockets), Boas Lysgaard (BHS PL Beton Bornholm), Anton Muller (Novo Nordisk), Magnus Macgholdt (Give Steel 2M) and the Airtox-Carl Ras pair of Matias Malmburg and Mads Andersen soon had a lead of 1:15.
Behind them Picnic-PostNL, Alpecin-Deceuninck and Lotto led the peloton, monitoring the time deficit, bringing it to around 45 seconds and holding it around that mark. After the intermediate sprint 47km from the line, Muller was dropped by the leaders as they upped the pace and extended their lead to more than a minute.
When the leaders entered the closing circuit their lead was down to 38 seconds and when they crossed the line with two laps to go the break still had 20 seconds, with other teams coming to the front of the peloton as it spread across the road. However, as the leaders reached the final lap only Wallin and Malmburg remained off the front and the catch seemed inevitable.
