Tao Geoghegan Hart took the victory on the opening stage at the Tour of the Alps with a late burst to overhaul the move of Hugh Carthy on the final climb in Alpbach.
The British rider timed his final kick to perfection, passing Jack Haig of Bahrain Victorious and Hugh Carthy of EF Education-EasyPost to take control of the race on day one.
“It was a good stage and we stayed calm in the final. Haigy was pretty strong but we saw the final yesterday, so I was pretty confident that we’d stick together. We made a nice race in the end”, said the Ineos rider.
“You don’t see too many climbs much steeper for five or six kilometres than we’ve just done there. So it’s not surprising that there wasn’t a big group at the front. There’s a lot of hard days to come here but it’s nice punchy stage to open up. I enjoyed it a lot, it was good weather in the end and beautiful roads, so it was nice.”
