Having survived the onslaught of wind and sand that battered stage two of the AlUla Tour, Pascal Ackermann sprinted to a solid third place finish.
The German kept his nose out of the breeze for as long as possible on the fast and frenetic finale, moving out of the slipstream of the group inside the final 100 metres to take his first podium of the season.
After a challenging opening day of the race, the wind picked up even more for the second stage of the AlUla Tour, and it wasn’t long before the race exploded.
With the help of his Team Jayco AlUla teammates, Ackermann was kept safe throughout the day as the bunch split time and again in the conditions setting him up for his first bunch sprint of the season.
Meanwhile, team leader Alan Hatherly finished safely within the bunch with the first hilly stage coming on stage three. Co-leader Paul Double was involved in a crash early on in the stage but escaped any serious injury, suffering superficial scrapes.
Pascal Ackermann
“It was a hard day like everybody knew there was going to be and because of the wind there were a lot of splits. We were nearly all in the front group, except for Paul who had a crash, I hope he’s fine. The guys did a super nice job and it was just a crazy sprint in the end. Everybody was tired, it was a really fast sprint with a tailwind so it was really important to have some good timing and a good position.”
AlUla Tour stage 2 results
1. Jonathan Milan 03:17:59
2. Daniel Skerl st
3. Pascal Ackermann (Team Jayco AlUla) st
Photo: Sprint Cycling
