Tour de France 2024 Stage 2

June 30, 2024 After a breathless first day, Stage 2 offered plenty of opportunities to keep us guessing on what might happen. Eleven riders got away after 10KM of racing on another hot, humid day in central Italy, including Jonas Abrahamsen of Uno-X Mobility, Harold Tejada of Astana, Nelson Oliveira of Movistar, Axel Laurance of Alpecin-Deceuninck, Quentin Pacher of Groupama-FDJ, Cristián Rodríguez and Kévin Vauquelin of Arkéa-B&B Hotels, Hugo Houle of Israel-Premier Tech, Jordan Jegat of TotalEnergies, Mike Teunissen of Intermarché-Wanty, and Bram Welten of DSM-Firmenich. Michael Matthews of Jayco AlUla and Brent Van Moer of Lotto-Dstny tried to bridged 50 seconds but the break were rolling well and the pair never made it, drifting back after 20KM of chasing. In the peloton, DSM-Firmenich honored the jersey and picked up the chase when the break got to 5 minutes. The break went over the first climb of the Montecino at 125KM to go, having slowly extended their lead to 8 minutes. Welten dropped out to go back and support his teammate and race leader Romain Bardet. The race passed through the Imola motor racing circuit and part of the route of the 2020 World Championships as the break were pushing to hold their advantage. The break hit the first passage up the Santuario di Madonna di San Luca in Bologna at 33KM to go with a 4 minute 10 second advantage as Lotto-Dstny really accelerated in the bunch. The crowd was thick up the narrow climb making it impossible to move up or even attack in the peloton. Abrahamsen went over the top first, like every other climb today, to consolidate his lead in the mountains classification. After the descent, Teunissen was first to attack from the break but it was Oliveira that countered and got away with Vauquelin and Abrahamsen with 20KM to race. Vauquelin got a gap almost immediately when they hit San Luca for the second and last time and went over the top with over 40 seconds to Abrahamsen. Vauquelin continued down the descent and was able to keep his gap large enough to secure an historic win for Arkéa-B&B Hotels and the second stage win for the French. Abrahamsen powered home for second place with Pacher taking third. In the GC fight, Adam Yates of UAE set a very hard pace in the peloton up San Luca, creating a select group of around 10 riders. Tadej Pogačar of UAE attacked near the top with Jonas Vingegaard of Visma-Lease a Bike straight onto the wheel. Remco Evenepoel of Soudal Quickstep and Richard Carapaz of EF-Education EasyPost were able to claw back to Pogačar and Vingegaard, getting on terms right on the finish line to score the same time. The rest of the GC group came in about 2 seconds later which will put Pogačar into the Yellow Jersey based on count back from Stage 1.