Tour of the Alps: Tao Geoghegan Hart powers up final uphill metres to win opening stage

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A blistering uphill acceleration gave Tao Geoghegan Hart the win on stage 1 of the Tour of the Alps and the first race lead. The Ineos Grenadiers rider stormed past late attacker Hugh Carthy (EF Education-EasyPost) to claim his second win of the season.

Ineos had controlled much of the hilly stage from Rattenberg to Alpbach but after sweeping up breakaway rider Jack Haig (Bahrain Victorious), Carthy launched a searing uphill attack.

However, Geoghegan Hart then made his finely-calculated move in the closing metres, with Felix Gall (AG2R Citroën) also making a late charge to push Carthy into third.

For Geoghegan Hart, set to return to the Giro d’Italia for the first time since he won it outright in 2020, a day 1 victory in the Tour of the Alps, where he won two stages and finished second overall to teammate Pavel Sivakov back in 2019, augers more than well.

“It was nice, a good stage, we stayed calm in the final,” the British rider told race organisation TV after catching his breath from his effort on the tough, unclassified ascent that concluded the stage.

“Haig was pretty strong, but luckily we saw the final yesterday so pretty confident that we’d stick together and make a nice race in the end.

“You don’t see many climbs for five or six kilometres which are that steep,” Geoghegan Hart said, referring to the ultra-difficult Kerschbaumer Sattel, the second-category climb where Haig had attacked and the race had blown apart. “It’s not surprising there wasn’t a big group at the end.”

How it unfolded

Ineos Grenadiers had done much of the work in keeping stage 1 together throughout the day, on a short, punchy race opener just 127 kilometres in length and with leaden, grey skies thankfully not giving way to rain.

Italian squad EOLO-Kometa managed to place two of their riders, Andrea Garosio and Alex Martin, in the early break, alongside Caja Rural-Seguros RGA’s Mulu Kinfe Hailemichael, Moran Vermeulen of the Austria National Team, and WorldTour racers Sergio Samitier (Movistar) and Valentin Paret-Peintre (AG2R-Citroöen). Ineos, however, never let the half-dozen riders gain more than three minutes.

Even before the mid-stage, category 3 Brandenberg, where racing began in earnest, Ineos remained at the head of affairs. Former Giro d’Italia leader Salvatore Puccio led the string over its summit  and onto the series of unclassified climbs that followed. Then as they approached the Kerschbaumer Sattel, Swift took over from his Sicilian teammate.

Vermeulen darted away to claim an intermediate sprint as the race powered through the finish town of Alpbachtal for the first time. But the full-scale pursuit along the valley floor prior to the biggest climb of the day, the Kerschbaumer Sattel, put the six ahead clearly within the sight of the bunch. Then just as they swung onto the climb, the break was reeled in.

Ineos Grenadiers showed no sign of easing on the pressure thanks to Laurens De Plus, to the point where there were only 30 riders in the front group 4km from the summit of the painfully-steep Kerschbaumer Sattel. Even when teammate Thymen Arensman began to suffer, Ineos still continued to insist at the front.

For more than two-thirds of the the climb, there was no sign of any attacks given Ineos ferocious pace, where Geraint Thomas and Geoghegan Hart slotted in smoothly behind De Plus as the British team shredded the bunch on a narrow, twisting Alpine lane.

However, they barely reacted as Jack Haig (Bahrain Victorious) opened up a gap and then Jefferson Cepeda (EF Education-EasyPost) zipped across to the Australian.

It was 600 metres from the summit where Cepeda then left Haig behind with seemingly minimal effort. But no sooner had they hit the fast but well-surfaced descent, Haig managed to regain contact and then open up his own solo effort.

Cepeda was finally reeled in at the foot of the final unclassified ascent, leaving Haig with half-a-minute’s advantage and everything to play for as he hunted for his first win in three years.

The Australian was able to keep the peloton of a dozen riders, headed by Thomas at a distance on the early part of the long, draggy ascent, but as soon as it steepened in the last kilometre and the attacks began in the front group, he was clearly struggling. Carthy was the first to blast past, sitting in and out of the saddle as he lurched uphill, only to see his compatriot Geoghegan Hart overhaul him almost within sight of the finishing gantries.

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