Paul Magnier won the opening stage of the Tour of Slovakia, also Okolo Slovenska, after his Soudal-QuickStep teammates were forced to chase down numerous attacks from WorldTour rivals Visma-Lease a Bike.
A select peloton stayed together despite the late attacks and then Soudal-QuickStep led Magnier into the rising cobbled road to the finish line. Magnier used his power and sprinting skills to surge away on the front and won by several bike lengths.
He beat local rider Lukáš Kubiš (Unibet Tietema Rockets) and Joppe Heremans (VolkerWessels).
Magnier pulled on the first leader's jersey after taking his seventh win of the 2025 season.
"It's a very nice feeling to win. We came with a strong team and I'm really happy to take first win and the GC," Magnier said.
"The team did an amazing job controlling all day. It was hard to control all of the attacks but we did it. I needed to be in a good position into the last corner before the cobbles. I did that, so I'm happy to win."
"It's been a very good season so far, I've made good progression in the sprints and the team helped and supported me with that. I'm the leader for the sprints and we hope there will be four sprints but it'll be hard to control all day. Our sponsor Janom is from Slovakia, so we want to make them proud."
How it unfolded
The opening stage of the Tour of Slovakia was a rolling 141km ride that included two loops and a final 40km circuit after a visit to the finish area.
Four riders bravely went on the attack early and formed the break of the day - Łukasz Owsian (Mazowsze Serce Polski), Oscar Nilsson-Julien (Equipe continentale Groupama-FDJ) and Michal Schlegel (Elkov-Kasper). They opened a gap of 1:15 with 122km to go and extended it to 2:00.
However, Soudal-QuickStep and Visma-Lease a Bike were determined to control the racing.
The early break of the day was eventually caught with 30km to go on the short but steep Kurov climb. Tom Gloag (Visma-Lease a Bike) surged across to the front of the race and so sparked a series of attacks on the ride to the finish.
A front peloton of 40 riders formed during the aggressive racing as riders tried to avoid a sprint finish. Gloag, Bart Lemmen, Matisse Van Kerckhove and Cian Uijtdebroeks all launched attacks, forcing Yves Lampaert to chase every move for Magnier.
Australia's Logan Currie (Lotto) was the last to launch strong attacks but he was also pulled back before Soudal-QuickStep took control and prepared a text-book lead out for Magnier to do his thing on the riding finish.
Results
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