As the 46th Tour of the Alps crossed from Austria to Italy, Team Bahrain Victorious’ co-leaders were at the fore once again on the 165kms from Reith im Alpbachtal.

It was a day that promised to be crucial in the GC battle, but in the end the time differences were small; the final climbs of Barbian and Mittelberg thinned the front group down to 8 riders, but were not testing enough to create big gaps between the favourites.

A break of three riders had gone clear after 10kms, and were joined by three more with 100km remaining. Their efforts were doomed to fail of course, and after they were caught and passed by the group, Santiago Buitrago accelerated on the last categorised climb of Monte di Mezzo. His was a test of his rivals rather than a full-on attack, and gave some impetus to the leaders as they headed for a short, steep ramp and a finishing half lap of an ice-rink (without the ice) in Ritten.

Once the Colombian was caught, race leader & Stage 1 winner Tao Geoghegan-Hart (IGD) managed to enter the arena just ahead of Jack Haig and kept that advantage to the line. Second place for the Australian, who was in bullish mood after the stage:

“Yesterday, I made it incredibly hard for myself doing all that valley alone, so I was suffering a little, and it was quite hot today, so maybe I overheated slightly.

Me and Santi played the final really well: he tried to attack early, but the climb wasn’t hard enough for that, and just into the final, I was with Tao, and he beat me to the entrance to the ice-rink.

We knew you needed to be first onto the arena but I couldn’t quite do it. They blocked the road a little, but that’s racing.”

Haig finished less than a bike length back, while behind them, Buitrago sped around Pavel Sivakov (IGD) to take third place. In addition, Santi’s efforts on the last two climbs earned him the blue jersey for the race’s best climber, in which he will ride stage 3.

Jack was positive about the work of the team today and optimistic about the coming days and weeks:

“The team did a good job keeping me right at the front today, and we have to try something now because of the advantage Tao has with the time bonuses.

Me and Santiago are going well, so that’s a good sign for the Giro.”

Stage 3 on Wednesday is the ‘Queen Stage’, and will see the peloton cover 164 kilometres from Renon with a C1 summit finish to Brentonico – San Valentino.

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