Durasek claims stage 2 at Tour of Croatia and takes lead

A Croatian rider ruled in Tour of Croatia stage 2. Kristijan Durasek (UAE Team Emirates) won the first summit arrival of the Tour of Croatia. He won on the final climb ahead of Jaime Roson (Caja Rural-Seguros RGA) and Vincenzo Nibali (Bahrain-Merida).

Snow at the top of the final climb to Biokovo Sveti forced organisers to move the finish down the mountain by more than half, shortening the stage to 107km instead of the original 123 kilometres.

Marco Coledan (Trek Segafredo), Anton Vorobyev (Gazprom RusVelo), Pirmin Lang (Roth-Akros) and Jhonatan Millan (Bicicletas Strongman) made up the breakaway of the day, but the peloton rode to keep them within reach before the final climb.

After the catch there were some minor attacks but it was Nibali who made the big move that everyone seemed to be waiting for. Only Roson, Durasek, and CCC-Sprandi-Polkowice’s Jan Hirt and Felix Grosschartner could follow, with Nibali’s teammate Siutsou along for the ride.

Nibali tried to ride them off his wheel in the finale but Durasek, knowing the roads in his home country a little better, was able to sprint for the win on the improvised finish line.

“I’m happy and excited: I know this climb, it’s a satisfaction winning here and it was great to fight with top riders such as Nibali”, Durasek explained.

“In the finale, I had extra motivations because I wanted to reward my team mates for their great support: I perceived that they were confident in me and I succeeded in exploiting in the best way my good form. I had good feelings, I thank the training and performance staff of the team for this result. Tomorrow, it will be great to wear the leader jersey at the start, it would be even better to keep the jersey for many days”.

Tour of Croatia 2017 – stage 2 results (Trogir – Biokovo):