Archie Ryan and Ben Healy were among the attackers today on stage 2 of Tour of Slovenia before a late crash took out Ryan, though his EF Education-EasyPost team mate, Healy, just about avoided it.
That crash occurred inside the final kilometre, just as the sprint from the reduced bunch was hilting full tilt. And though it looked like Ryan would avoid it, as it started to his left, the incident spread across the road and took out the young Irishman, as the video below shows.
How that crash will impact him for the remainder of the race, where he is an obvious general classification contender, remains to be seen. However, Ryan had almost come to a stop when he fell, as he hit a fallen ride and went over the front of his bike at low speed.
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Luckily for Healy, though the crash reached him on the opposite side of the road he managed to brake and avoid falling.
The incident opened gaps in the field, and though Healy lost almost 20 seconds and Ryan crossed the line well over a minute down, those time gaps did not count in the general classification under the 3km rule.
Ryan and Healy had team mate Mikkel Honoré up the road until the very closing stages today. And as he was still clear, Ryan was a constant presence at the front of the peloton in the final, jumping after the counter attacks.
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As he moved off the front repeatedly, Healy was also on the attack, moving clear a number of times, often in the presence of Jhonatan Narváez (Ineos Grenadiers). When Honoré was finally caught with 2km to go, Healy had a last big dig.
However, though he got clear, he was hunted down immediately by Bahrain Victorious, on behalf of their sprinter Phil Bauhaus. And when Healy was caught, it came down to a sprint from a reduced group, won by Bauhaus from Alberto Dainese (Tudor), Luca Mezgec (Jayco AlUla) and Jonas Koch (Bora-hansgrohe).
As stage 1 winner Dylan Groenwegen (Team Jayco AlUla) did not make it to the finish in the bunch, on what was a lumpy course, Bauhaus took the race lead. Healy is now 7th overall at 12 seconds, with Ryan is 46th at 14 seconds.
Phil Bauhaus por el canto de un duro ?
⚡ El alemán bate a Alberto Dainese y Luka Mezgec en un igualadísimo esprint en Rogaška Slatina y se convierte en líder de la carrera.#TourofSlovenia | #LaCasadelCiclismo pic.twitter.com/OxbYhQG5iL
— Eurosport.es (@Eurosport_ES) June 13, 2024
