Peter Sagan in the Pierre Baguette line-up is together with Marc Cavendish the main attraction of the Tour de Hongrie. But the top candidates for GC are Hirschi, Poels and Buchmann

There are 45 races around Hungary. It appeared in the UCI calendar in 2004, then in 2007 and then continuously since 2015. He didn’t even have a covid break. Until 2017, it was classified in the lowest double category. Since 2018, he has advanced one step higher. He made it to the Pro level for the first time last year and is there again this year.

Of the cyclists who made it to the podium here, Dan Turek took 3rd place in 2016 and Tadej Pogačar on the same step a year later. Also Márton Dina 2nd in 2019, Atilla Valter (currently Visma-LaB), winner of the year 2020, or Antonio Tiberi, 3rd year after and currently in the Bahrain-Victorious jersey striving for the overall ranking at the Giro.

Last year, Marco Hirschi (UAE Emirates) was the prey before Ben Tulette, this year’s Visma-LaB reinforcement, where he came from INEOS Grenadiers, and Yaniss Voisard, probably the best climber of the current season’s Tudor Pro Cycling line-up.

Thanks to the fact that Márton Dina has been on the ATT Investments list since last year, the Pardubice team made it to this last season’s only race from the ProTour category. And he didn’t get lost. On the contrary.

After the opening stage, which ended in a group finish and was won by Dylan Groenewegen (Jayco AlUla), Matúš Štoček wore the jersey of the best mountaineer thanks to his participation in the daily breakaway, and he was also in second place behind Groenewegen in the points competition and in the overall classification.

The second stage also ended with a peloton sprint, the first on the tape this time was Fabio Jakobsen (then Soudal-Quick Step), but this time Dan Turek showed himself in the daily breakaway, so after the end of the stage Matúš was 3rd in the running order, he still owned the mountaineer’s jersey and Dan he was 3rd in the same competition and 10th in GC.

The third stage ended on a hill, won by Marc Hirschi and, as you can see, laid the foundations for the final classification. Matúš Štoček started to break away again, won all three speed premiums and exchanged his mountaineer jersey for a points one! In addition, Márton Dina finished the stage in 10th place, which meant that he moved to 8th position!

The fourth ended on an even longer hill, won by Voisard, decisively claiming the final 3rd place. It was already too much for Márton, he arrived at the finish line with Faust Masnada (Soudal-Quick Step) and ahead of Jhonatan Narváez (INEOS), but 25th place and a loss of 48 seconds meant a drop to 17th place. Matúš had the green jersey in his possession even before the final stage!

The last stage was neutralized due to weather conditions, so nothing has changed in the results. ATT Investments added one more to all the listed achievements: in the competition of 22 teams, including 9 from the World level and the same number from the Pro level, it took the final 4th place in the team competition!

Despite such a presentation, he did not get to the start this year. The reason was clear. There is a limited number of continental teams at races in this category. Home team Epronex, the Italian-Hungarian MBH Bank Colpack Ballan, for which Pavel Novák rides but is not nominated for Hungary, and also the home team were given preference.

Last but not least in our list is Pierre Baguette, in whose jersey Peter Sagan starts! We will see how he performs in practice. But we will also be interested in how the four Czech riders Tomáš Kalojíros, Martin Voltr, Daniel Vysočan and Jakub Říman will fare in the composition of this Slovak team.

This time there are 8 teams from the first division (UAE Emirates, INEOS Grenadiers, Jayco AlUla, Lidl-Trek, dsm-firmenich PostNL, BORA-hansgrohe, Bahrain-Victorious and Astana) and the same number from the second (Polti-Kometa, Tudor, Lotto Dstny, Q36.5, Flanders-Baloise, Euskaltel-Euskadi, Corratec-Vini Fantini and TDT-Unibet).

Whom to favor? It depends on the composition of the stages. The first two have a high potential to end in a duel of sprinters. In that case, let’s focus our attention – according to the currently available start list – on fighters such as Arvid de Kleijn (Tudor), Dylan Groenewegen (Jayco), Matteo Moschetti (Q36.5), Sam Welsford (BORA-hansgrohe), Marc Cavendish, Cees Bol or Gleb Syritsa (all Astana), Elia Viviani and Ethan Hayter (both INEOS), Dušan Rajovič (Bahrain-Victorious) or Jarne Van de Paar (Lotto Dstny).

The next three stages have the finish placed at the end of the climb. Third after 12 km with an average of 5.6%, but the final 3.5 km has a gradient of 8%! Fourth on a short (1.3 km), but not entirely easy (5.8%) route. And the last one is 2.3 km long at 8.7%, but in the middle there is a kilometer with a slope of around 14%. In addition, three other hills immediately precede the target, the second two of which copy the last one, but from the target area there is an additional 1.7 km uphill with a slope of 10.4%!

Therefore, Diego Ulissi and Marc Hirschi (UAE Emirates), Wout Poels (Bahrain-Victorious), Emanuel Buchmann and Ben Zwiehoff (BORA-hansgrohe), Yaniss Voisard (Tudor), Sylvain Moniquet and Harm Vanhoucke (Lotto Dstny), Damien Howson and Carl Fredrik Hagen (Q36.5), Frank van den Broek (dsm-firmenich PostNL), Óscar Rodríguez (INEOS Grenadiers), Valerio Conti (Corratec-Vini Fantini), Michele Gazzoli (Astana), Dario Cataldo (Lidl-Trek) or Rudy Porter (Jayco AlUla).

ATT is missing at the start, but Márton Dina is not. He will wear the national team jersey. And as for the Czechs, in addition to those in Pierre Baguette’s line-up, three more will start: Pavel Bittner (dsm-firmenich), Mathias Vacek (Lidl-Trek) and Adam Ťoupalík (TDT-Unibet).

Daniel Vysočan: “Peter hasn’t raced for a long time. So we’ll see how he does. If needed, we’re ready to help him. The chance for a good result is of course mainly in the flat stages. But as a team we want to be seen throughout the entire stage. Participation is offered above all As for my ambitions, I would like to make it in the difficult stages with a hilly finish, even if it will be very challenging in the competition that took place in Hungary.”

Márton Dina: “I’ll probably be a GC rider, but the team also has ambitions in breakaways and sprints. I think I’m in better shape now than at this time last year. But because of the sinus infection, I racing kilometers are missing, we’ll see how I’m doing at the race. My goal is the same as last year, I would like to finish in the top 10.“

It runs from 8 to 12 May and the race is broadcast by Eurosport.