Second stage was the shortest one in this year's edition of the race. Riders had to take on only 145 kilometres, connecting the cities Prešov and Poprad. There were four mountain sprits and three intermediate sprints along the way.
Peloton had to deal with cold and rainy weather during the day. Most of the riders started in rain jackets. Right from the start there was a long fight for the breakaway, but it couldn't be established for a long time.
Yevgeniy Fedorov from Astana Qazaqstan managed to win the first mountain sprint, Thibaut Pinot from Groupama-FDJ won the second one. After 50 kilometres of full on racing, the break finally got away after numerous unsuccesfull attempts by many riders, including Pinot.
Jaka Primožic (Hrinkow Advarics), Erik Fetter (EOLO-Kometa), Riccardo Lucca (Green Project - Bardiani CSF), Sebastian Schönberger (Human Powered Health) and Jakub Otruba (ATT Investments) created a day's main break and they remained in the front of the race for a long time.
Last two mountain sprints were won by Schönberger, but Vader was untouchable at the lead of the mountains classification. First two intermediate sprints were won by Otruba, which got him also the day's combativity award, and last one was won by Slovenian Primožic.
Break was tightly controlled by the race leaders Soudal - Quick-Step, who had the absolute favourite for the bunch sprint in Tim Merlier. Break got caught within last ten kilometres of the stage, with Primožic the last man standing.
The stage was decided in the bunch sprint in historical part of Poprad. Tim Merlier won ahead of Astana's Cees Bol and Jumbo-Visma's youngster and white jersey wearer Colby Simmons.
Rémi Cavagna finished comfortably in peloton and remains the race leader with decent margin. Milan Vader remains the king of mountains, Colby Simmons extended his lead in best young rider classification by claiming bonus seconds at the stage final and Slovakian national champion Matúš Štoček (ATT Investments) held on to best Slovak rider jersey.
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