Rohan Dennis wins Tour of the Alps stage cut short by snow

Rohan Dennis (BMC) claimed victory on the second stage of the Tour of the Alps in Innervillgraten, while Thibaut Pinot (FDJ) took the overall race lead.

The stage distance was cut by 40km (25ml) and the start moved following a heavy snowfall on the Brenner Pass linking Austria and Italy.

Pinot picked up a six-second bonus for coming runner-up behind Dennis and that was enough to propel him from third past Geraint Thomas (Tea Sky) and first stage winner Michele Scarponi (Astana).

As the race headed towards the climb to St. Justina, a huge increase in pace from the main bunch saw the breakaway reeled in as the road began to rise with 28km remaining.

Attacks began early on the 4.8km climb with five riders extending a slight advantage as they went over the summit.

Inside the final 10km, the group of five were holding onto a 40-second advantage over the main bunch before only Damiano Caruso (BMC), Mikel Landa (Team Sky), and Stefano Pirazzi (Bardiani – CSF) were left out in front.

They continued to push on, but the bunch was chasing hard behind and with less than a kilometer to go the race was back together and heading for an uphill sprint to the line.

With only meters to go, an explosive burst of acceleration saw Rohan Dennis put some daylight between himself and the bunch before storming across the line to victory.

“I’m feeling really happy after today. I didn’t expect to win, to be honest. I was just playing it by ear really. We knew that the finish was slightly uphill so I thought that if I was in a good position, I would give it a crack and see how I went. Today it worked perfectly”, said Dennis.

“The team did a great job for me today, and I maybe used their energy at the wrong times on a couple of occasions today. But, I can definitely learn from that and I am really glad that I could repay them with the win.”

Tour of the Alps 2016 – stage 2 results (Vipiteno – Innervillgraten):

General classification after stage 2: