Ineos Grenadiers missed out on a second consecutive victory on stage 2 of the Tour of the Alps after the early breakaway’s stayed away, despite the British team leading the chase for much of the 190km stage.
With no other teams prepared to offer help with the chase, and the breakaway riders putting up a fight, Ineos Grenadiers eased up with 20km to go knowing the win was no longer possible.
Breakaway specialist Alessandro de Marchi (Jayco AlUla) emerged victorious, blowing up the breakaway on the final climb. He finished 1:47 ahead of the peloton but was not an overall threat and so Tobias Foss kept the race leader's green jersey.
Only a few words and fist-bumps were shared by the visibly disappointed Ineos Grenadiers riders before they swiftly headed back to their team bus.
“We knew De Marchi was a dangerous guy to let go in the break, he often wins from the breakaway, but we had belief that we could control it,” Foss explained.
“But it turned out that even though we rode full gas in the pack, I don’t know how, but they stayed away and even gained time so chapeau to them. They rode well in and in the end, we realised that the stage win was out of the picture.”
The original Ineos Grenadiers race plan was to ride for Filippo Ganna and hope he could survive the attacks from other GC teams. If they tried to make the race hard on the final Gnadenwald categorised climb, the powerful Italian rider would perhaps survive and be the fastest finisher and so able to win the sprint.
“Obviously, Pippo [Ganna] was moving well yesterday. I think with where he’s at now, he is definitely capable of being in that finish and if he’s able to find space then he can win the stage,” Ineos Grenadiers directeur sportif Zak Dempster told Cyclingnews at the start of the stage.
However the six riders that went away in the opening 50km of the longest stage of the race built an advantage of over four minutes on the long ride from Salorno to Stans in Austria that included the long Passo del Brennero pass that climbs from Italy into Austria.
The British team chased for nearly all of the 190km stage, putting Ben Swift, AJ August, Óscar Rodríguez and Salvatore Puccio on the front in the Tyrolean sun to try and pull back the escapees. But their work came to nothing after four hours of riding on the front.
Ganna was gracious in defeat as ever after the stage, going straight to compatriot De Marchi to congratulate his fellow Italian who took his first win since 2021.
Of course Ganna and Ineos Grenadiers had hoped for a different result.
“I had a quick chat with him [Ganna] right after, I think everyone is a bit disappointed that he didn’t get the chance but, to be honest, we raced full gas today and I think we were a bit unlucky with the conditions maybe,” Foss said.
“Normally a headwind should be in our favour but pulling full gas alone unfortunately we didn't have enough power so I think the whole team is a bit disappointed.
“At the end of the day, we just pulled for… Not for no reason but we ended up with quite different to what we hoped, so for sure he and everyone are disappointed. But this is also cycling, days like this will happen.”
Ineos Grenadiers will try to bounce back on stage 3 starting and finishing in Schwaz, Austria, with Thomas and Foss likely to be back fighting the GC battle on a mountainous 124.8km stage route.
