The first blue leader's jersey of the Deutschland Tour 2024 goes to Jonathan Milan. The 23-year-old Italian from Team Lidl-Trek won by 71 hundredths ahead of his team-mate Mads Pedersen in Schweinfurt. The best German was Jannik Steimle (Q36.5 Pro Cycling Team) in seventh place, five seconds behind.
It was very important for us to get off to a good start on the Deutschland Tour. Mads and I were very close to each other at the end, less than a second - Jonathan Milan
Deutschland Tour 2024 - Results: the top 10 of the prologue
- Jonathan Milan (Lidl-Trek) 3:16
- Mads Pedersen (Lidl-Trek) +0:01
- Maikel Zijlaard (Tudor Pro Cycling Team) +0:02
- Ethan Hayter (Ineos Grenadiers) +0:03
- Stefan Bissegger (EF Education EasyPost) +0:03
- Danny van Poppel (Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe) +0:04
- Jannik Steimle (Q36.5 Pro Cycling Team) +0:05
- Marco Haller (Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe) +0:05
- Jordi Meeus (Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe) +0:05
- Fabio Christen (Q36.5 Pro Cycling Team) +0:06
How the prologue of the Deutschland Tour 2024 went
The Belgian Vlad van Mechelen (Bahrain-Victorious) held the fastest time for a long time at the start with 3:26 minutes, before Marco Haller from Team Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe was five seconds faster with 3:21 minutes. Jannik Steimle (Q36.5 Pro Cycling Team) then took first place from the Austrian by six hundredths. Steimle held on to the lead for a long time until Swiss time trial specialist Stefan Bissegger (EF Education EasyPost) topped the German's time. However, Bissegger did not stay in the hot seat for long. First, Ethan Hayter (Ineos Grenadiers) delivered another faster time, which was then beaten by Jonathan Milan by another three seconds with a time of 3:16.
Pedersen narrowly beaten, Ganna disappointed
Only Milan's team-mate Mads Pedersen came dangerously close again. In the end, he was 71 hundredths off the best time. In contrast, the start was disappointing for top favourite Filippo Ganna (Ineos Grenadiers). The world hour record holder finished 14th, seven seconds behind.
However, the gaps are still very small after the 2.9 kilometres in Schweinfurt - 100th place is only 20 seconds behind first place, which means that many riders still have a chance of winning the Deutschland Tour 2024. On the way there, the race continues on Thursday with the Stage 1 which takes the riders over 176.3 kilometres from Schweinfurt to Heilbronn.
