Skoda Tour de Luxembourg 2024 Stage 2

September 19, 2024 Late summer sun bathed the riders at the start in Junglinster as they set off for 155KM with three finishing laps around Schifflange. The final circuit has a two bumps but this day is the most likely to produce a sprint. Pepijn Reinderink of Soudal Quickstep and Alexandre Kess of the Luxembourg National Team joined forces again up the road. Reinderink picked up the mountains points early on and then drifted back, knowing the bunch had them on a tight rope. Kess continued solo with a gap of 2 minutes 15 seconds but still had 75KM to go. The bunch were relaxed and slowly reeling in Kess until 34KM to go when Bahrain-Victorious tried to split the race in the cross wind. The wind was blowing but it wasn't open enough for long enough. Kess was caught in the process and the race reset with 31KM to go. Carl Fredrik Hagen of Q36.5 attacked with 24KM to go on the larger of the two climbs of the circuit. He was able to pick up 3 bonus seconds in the intermediate sprint and sat up to go back into the peloton. Marc Hirschi of UAE sprinted for 2 seconds to keep himself high in GC. Victor Vercouillie of Flanders Baloise counter attacked. Reinderink went shortly after and the pair joined each other with 14KM to go and a gap of 48 seconds back to the bunch. Reinderink went solo with 5.9KM to go on the first climb of the circuit. Uno-X Mobility ripped up the start of the last climb which closed down Reinderink. The race stalled momentarily but Lidl-Trek got control and brought the peloton into the sprint. Mads Pedersen was dropped off a little early but it was a slight downhill run along a sweeping left turn. He was able to hold the inside line at a high pace which was enough to fend off Mathieu van der Poel of Alpecin-Deceuninck for the win. Van der Poel took second with Robin Froidevaux of Tudor Pro Cycling finishing third. Van der Poel still holds the GC lead with no changes in the top three places.