Breakaway steals a march on the peloton on stage 2 in Greece

What was set to be a second sprint opportunity for Team Novo Nordisk on stage two at the Tour of Hellas turned into frustration in the finale as the breakaway spoiled the party by holding on to contest the stage.

A hilly opening half of a wet second day of racing saw a leading quintet gain over a minute on the peloton on the first ascent with everything seemingly under control. 

“I don’t think anyone was worried at that point,” said team captain Andrea Peron. “They went quite early and most of the bunch seemed to think that would be plenty of time to bring them back.” 

But that’s often the thing with breakaways, they can prove to be stubborn and willfully disobedient. As the group reduced to three riders late in the stage, the peloton struggled to organize itself in time and the trio still held a minutes advantage going into the final ten kilometers.

“Even though they never had a massive gap,” continued Peron. “The attacks that split the lead group upped the ante and the pace, and that gave them confidence. We should have collaborated better in the bunch and obviously left it too late to get ourselves organized with the other teams.“

“Those last 10km were pretty frantic and in the end they won by 25 seconds and we had to settle for 12th with Matyas. It’s frustrating for sure, but some guys learned a good lesson today and we can’t let this happen again….and if it does well then we need make sure we’re in the breakaway!”