Even Lipowitz sacrifices himself for a remarkable Red Bull one-two at Tour of Slovenia

Laurence Pithie has won stage one of the Tour of Slovenia. The New Zealander rounded off a dominant day for Red Bull-BORA-hansgrohe. The German team tore the peloton apart, with even Florian Lipowitz and Giulio Pellizzari doing the hard work. Lead-out man Arne Marit also finished second, ahead of Edoardo Zambanini (Bahrain Victorious).

While most of the big names opted to prepare for the Tour de France via the Tour Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes or the Tour de Suisse, the Tour of Slovenia offered another route. The stage race couldn't attract national heroes like Tadej Pogacar or Primož Roglič this time around, but Florian Lipowitz chose the slightly more unconventional approach, and was joined by Giulio Pellizzari.

It wasn't yet going to be a battle for the general classification in stage one, as the 142-kilometre stage was largely flat and looked set for the sprinters. The smaller teams fought for a place in the day's breakaway, which eventually numbered four riders: Tomas Pridal (Team United Shipping), Sam Brand (Novo Nordisk), Diego Uriarte (Equipo Kern Pharma) and Dutchman Danny van der Tuuk (Euskaltel-Euskadi).

Their lead was eaten into quickly, however. Red Bull-BORA-hansgrohe rode an aggressive race, ensuring the four escapees were caught with around thirty kilometres to go. On the small hills in the finale, they shattered the peloton: sprinters like Giovanni Lonardi (Polti-VisitMalta), Ben Oliver (Modern Adventure) and Dušan Rajović (Solution Tech Nippo Rali) couldn't hold on.

Only around forty riders remained at the front. Red Bull-BORA-hansgrohe had dropped almost every sprinter, and could see that Arne Marit and Laurence Pithie were well placed. Bahrain Victorious also had two fast men in the front group with Alberto Bruttomesso and Edoardo Zambanini. It wasn't a done deal yet.

But there was no question of a lone attack, thanks to the German squad. Even Florian Lipowitz put in a stint at the front doing the hard work, and Giulio Pellizzari took over from him. Marit then delivered a superb lead-out, before Pithie came through to finish it off: a true one-two.