First stage was 173 kilometres long and it had a rolling profile. There were four mountain sprints and three intermediate sprints along the way. Right after the start peloton climbed up the hills of Krížik, Marika and Slanské sedlo. It was here where the winning breakaway got away.
The group consisted of Kasper Asgreen and Rémi Cavagna (2x Soudal - Quick-Step), Koen Bouwman and Milan Vader (2x Jumbo-Visma), Bruno Armilail and Stefan Küng (2x Groupama-FDJ), Davide Bais (EOLO-Kometa), Mulu Knife Hailemichael (Caja Rural - Seguros RGA), Alessandro Tonelli (Green Project - Bardiani CSF), Bart Lemmen (Human Powered Health), Antoine Debons (Team Corratec), Jakub Otruba (ATT Investments), Urko Berrade (Equipo Kern Pharma) and Davide de Cassan (Friuli ASD).
On the first three hills it was Milan Vader who was the most active rider, winning two sprints and after the stage he was rewarded by getting a polka-dot jersey for leader of the mountains classification. The collaboration in the front group was good and the peloton started losing ground soon.
First intermediate sprint with bonus seconds in city of Trebišov was won by Kasper Asgreen. On second ascent of the Slanské sedlo the group in front split and Cavagna, Asgreen, Vader, Küng, Lemmen and Hailemichael got away.
Soudal - Quick-Step used the numerical advantage in the front well and Rémi Cavagna attacked with 50 kilometres remaining, while Asgreen worked for him behind. French rider won the remaining two intermediate sprints and soloed to victory in Košice, with a big margin of nearly two minutes.
In the fight for the second place Eritrean Mulu Knife Hailemichael prevailed, getting away from the rest of the group. Kasper Asgreen sprinted to third. Team Soudal - Quick-Step started the title defence in Tour of Slovakia well, positioning themselves as the team to beat once again. Cavagna holds both the yellow and green jerseys. White jersey is in the hands of Colby Simmons (Jumbo-Visma) and the best Slovak rider after the first stage is Slovakian national champion Matúš Štoček (ATT Investments).
Summary of the stage (in Slovak):
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