Ide Schelling (Bora-Hansgrohe) took a maiden WorldTour victory on stage two of Itzulia Basque Country, and took over the overall lead from Great Britain’s Ethan Hayter (Ineos Grenadiers).
The Dutch rider managed to beat Matteo Sobrero (Jayco-AUIla) and David Gaudu (Groupama-FDJ) to the line from a select group to record his second ever career victory in Leitza.
On a tricky, very technical descent, Schelling moved to the head of a select group containing 30 riders. Once they were off the descent, the group that had formed faced a high speed dash to the finish line.
In the end, Sobrero and Gaudu couldn’t match Schelling’s final turn of speed, which enabled the Dutchman to power away to victory.
After he crossed the line, Schelling criticised the “way too dangerous” finish.
“It’s a bit strange that the UCI allows this final because it’s way too dangerous in my opinion. You see it also with crashes in the final kilometres on the downhill,” he said.
"The last kilometre was ok, but just to send a full peloton in a downhill like this is just asking for problems. It's not good. Most teams were not expecting a sprint, I believe, but still I saw it coming with a final climb this easy. It is what it is. For me it wasn't too dangerous and I was lucky I could find a gap in the final kilometre."
Schelling now leads the race by four seconds from Sobrero, Gaudu sits in third at six seconds back.
