Israeli national champion Oded Kogut (Israel Premier-Tech) dominated the final bunch sprint of the Cro Race to win stage 6, denying Alexander Kristoff (Uno-X Mobility) a third win of the week, as Brandon McNulty (UAE Team Emirates) clung on for the overall victory.
Kogut followed the Uno-X wheels and rounded Kristoff in the closing few metres of the stage to win by a bike length, with the Norwegian and his team-mate Tord Gudmestad finishing second and third in Zagreb, while Ineos Grenadiers’ Ben Turner was fourth.
Dsm-firmenich PostNL had controlled proceedings all day in a bid to close the gap between their second-placed rider, Tobias Lund Andresen, and McNulty. But although the Dane snatched six seconds off his red jersey rival by winning two intermediate sprints, it was not enough to take the overall and McNulty finished eight seconds clear.
Fred Wright (Bahrain Victorious) moved into third overall, 27 seconds down, a single second ahead of team-mate Edoardo Zambanini.
“Winning here today is really special for me and means a lot, doing it today, a year after October 7th,” Kogut said after the finish.
“After all this tough year that my country and family and friends are going through, running into shelters every few hours, and my friends protecting the country I come from, it really means a lot to win here today with this jersey and to show who we are.”
How it unfolded
The sprinters’ teams unexpectedly enjoyed a free ride on today’s 168km run from Sveta Nedelja to Zagreb as dsm went all-out for Lund. The Dane started the day 14 seconds in arrears to McNulty, but that deficit was trimmed to 11 seconds as he won the first of three intermediate sprints.
A five-man breakaway of Charles Paige (TDT – Unibet), Casper Van der Woude (Metec–Solarwatt p/b Mantel), Kacper Maciejuk (Santic–Wibatech) Matthias Schwarzbacher (ATT Investments), and Konrad Czabok (Mazowsze Serce Polski) was allowed up the road, but dsm kept them on a tight leash.
The leading five had just 1:15 on the peloton as they hit the day’s solitary climb, the category 3 Sv. Ivan Zelina. With the mountains classification sewn up by Axel van der Tuuk (Metec–Solarwatt p/b Mantel) there was little competition for the points and his teammate Van der Woude swept them up.
Cohesion broke down in the breakaway as the peloton advanced on the long, wide, highway into Zagreb, and they were absorbed with 20km left to race and both the stage and title still up for grabs.
From there it was into the finishing circuit, three laps of a 5km loop including two sharp left-handers with 500m until the finish line. Dsm led out the day’s final intermediate sprint, at the second passage of the line, and despite pressure from McNulty, Lund came through to snatch three bonus seconds. McNulty was blocked off in the closing metres, with Pier-André Côté (Israel-PremierTech) and Fred Wright taking the remaining bonus seconds and Wright moving into third place overall.
Uno-X Mobility then marshalled the peloton, reeling in a doomed late trio of escapees. Lund, aware he had to win the stage to take the title, battled for position but was boxed in inside the final 500m. Uno-X looked in control until the closing stages but Kogut swung round Kristoff to deny him a third win, as McNulty finished safely in the bunch to hold onto his red jersey. Lund had the consolation of winning the points and young riders’ classifications.
