LELEX: Primoz Roglic edged Tour de France holder Egan Bernal in a tight finish to clinch the second stage of the Tour de l’Ain on Saturday (Aug 8) exactly three weeks ahead of the start of this year’s ‘Grand Boucle’.
Jumbo-Visma’s Roglic, who won last year’s Vuelta a Espana, also took the overall leader’s jersey to press home his claims for the Tour which begins on Aug 29.
Roglic paid tribute to his team-mates including Steven Kruijswijk, George Bennett and Tom Dumoulin, who all finished within the top 25.
“It was a perfect day. The whole team did a really great job and I was super happy that I could finish it off,” Roglic said.
“It was definitely nice to see that other guys are also strong. We are here to find the right feelings and we are concentrating on that,” the 30-year-old added.
UAE Team Emirates’ Valerio Conti finished third with Bernal’s Ineos team-mate, and 2018 Tour winner, Geraint Thomas more than four minutes behind Slovenian Roglic.
Ineos’ Chris Froome, who clinched the last of his four Tour titles in 2017 and will join Israel Start-Up Nation next season, trailed Roglic by 12 minutes.
Another of Roglic’s fellow Visma riders Dylan Groenewegen has been suspended by the Dutch outfit pending a UCI investigation into Wednesday’s crash at the Tour of Polond which hospitalised Fabio Jakobsen.
Jakobsen awoke from a medically-induced coma on Friday after serious injuries in the 80 kilometres an hour collision.
Sunday’s 145km final day in the Ain region ends at an altitude of 1,500m at the Col du Grand Colombier and is an almost exact copy of the 15th stage of this year’s Tour.