Czech Tour 2025 Stage 2

August 15, 2025 Dlouhé Stráně hosts the first of two GC days in this year's Czech Tour. Starting in Pardubice on the banks of the Elbe River, the road gradually rolls up and down for the entire stage but with 20KM to go, the road tips up for good, all the way to the finish. The categorized portion of the finishing climb is 13KM at 5.4% but as the riders get further up, so do the gradients. The last 6KM are just over 6.5% which isn't too steep so there could be a smaller group coming to the finish or a brave attacker who jumps away in the closing kilometers. Kyrylo Tsarenko of Solution Tech-Vini Fantini, Zétény Szijártó of United Shipping, Konrad Waliniak of Voster ATS, Matěj Zahálka of Elkov-Kasper, Jan Kašpar of TUFO-Pardus Prostějov, Tim Gloßner of Benotti Berthold, and Jost van de Streek and Casper van der Woude of Metec-SolarWATT made the early move. They had a maximum gap of around 5 minutes 15 seconds but with 50KM to go, that was pared back to just 2 minutes 45 seconds with Equipo Kern Pharma, Soudal Quickstep, and Visma-Lease a Bike chasing in the peloton. The chase visibly quickened in the peloton through the town of Šumperk and riders at the back were starting to struggle with the pace and the heat which pushed to over 31C (88F). The foothills brought the strongest guys in the break to the front. With 25KM to go, Tsarenko, Zahálka, and Waliniak jumped clear of the rest and were quickly gone. When they hit the categorized part of the climb with 13KM to go, the gap was under 20 seconds with the peloton charging behind. Tsarenko showed he was the best of the break but the peloton was still 50 riders strong when he was caught with around 8KM to go. Visma-Lease a Bike were setting a hard pace and split the group down to seven riders and when Cian Uijtdebroeks hit the front, it was trimmed further. Only William Junior Lecerf of Soudal Quickstep, Santiago Umba of XDS-Astana Development Team, and Alessandro Fancellu of JCL-UKYO could follow. Umba attacked and Uijtdebroeks took it upon himself to do the chasing and was able to bring it back to make four at the front. The pace came off slightly when Umba was caught and the Eritrean National Champion, Nahom Zeray of JCL-UKYO, bridged to join his teammate, Fancellu, at the front. Fancellu immediately went on the attack and no one but Uijtdebroeks wanted to chase. Uijtdebroeks was able to reel in Fancellu and dropped Umba in the process. Inside the last 2KM, Zeray was dropped and Uijtdebroeks continued to try and ride the others off the wheel. The situation continued until just outside of 200M to go when Lecerf hit the wind for the first time. He sprinted right passed Uijtdebroeks, through the final left turn, and up to the finish line for Soudal Quickstep's second win in as many days. Fancellu came in next on the same time, with Uijtdebroeks in third at 3 seconds. Lecerf now leads the race overall by 4 seconds on Fancellu and 9 seconds to Uijtdebroeks with a likely sprint finish tomorrow and an uphill finish to end the race on Sunday.