Tour of Slovenia: Dušan Rajović out-sprints Laurence Pithie to win stage 2

A well-timed late charge in stage 2 of the Tour of Slovenia by Dušan Rajović (Solution Tech NIPPO Rali) has seen the 28-year-old Serbian sprinter outpower leading WorldTour favourite Laurence Pithie (Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe) for the win.

Rajović secured his sixth victory of the season by over a bike length after closing the gap on stage 1 winner and race leader Pithie, with Nikiforos Arvanitou (United Shipping) in third.

The mostly flat 181.8 kilometre stage between Radlje ob Dravi and Ormož had been neutralised with around 30 kilometres to go after the race doctor had to attend several crash victims.

After around half an hour’s delay, racing resumed and although Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe were in almost complete control of affairs for the run-in, Pithie’s big for a second straight win was foiled by Rajović on the slightly rising finishing straight.

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An early five-rider break of Gal Oblak (Factor), Marcel Skok (Kolesarski Klub Novo Mesto), Mihael Štajna (Pogi Team Gusto Ljubljana), Zsombor Palumby (United Shipping) and Kacper Majewski (Wibatech Lubelskie Perła Polski), took off just before the first climb of the day, Janževski vrh (6.9 km à 3.6%) and was reeled in just before the second, the Jeruzalem (4.3km at 2.3%), some 32 kilometres from the line.

However, a crash immediately afterwards sparked a neutralisation on the series of technical ascents around the Jeruzalem climb, with the race director insisting the peloton initially slow down because the race doctor was attending to the victims of a crash involving half a dozen riders on a fast downhill. The bunch was then stopped completely at around 27 kilometres to go.

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Finally, after a half hour wait, the race got underway again, with Red Bull, headed by Italy’s Giulio Pellizzari and local star Jan Tratnik, once again working on the front of the 60-strong lead peloton. A second group, around three minutes back, had no option on winning by this point, but Red Bull were clearly keen to underline their domination and they got some help from Modern Adventure, racing for Ben Oliver, as well.

Florian Lipowitz, soon to head for the Tour de France to defend his 2025 podium, was amongst the Red Bull riders doing the hard work in the last five kilometres on a broad, gentle downhill. Bahrain Victorious were pushing close behind in a very tense finale, too, but Matteo Cattaneo then gave it one last blast on the front. A very early surge by Oliver, almost but not completely jammed alongside the right-hand side of the barriers, initially looked very promising, but then Pithie closed down on his compatriot and the two went several bike lengths clear.

However, while Pithie had seemingly timed his late charge past Oliver to perfection, the New Zealander hadn’t bargained on having Rajovič make a tremendous late acceleration to reach the Kiwi duo as well. Then when Rajovič flashed past for the 23rd professional win of his career, there was nobody who could respond and the Serbian could celebrate a victory taken with clinical ease.

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