BORA – ARGON 18 kicked off its home race with a victory. With Sam Bennett, the winner of the first stage at the Tour of Bavaria rides for a Bavarian team. The 24-years old Irishman sprinted in Waldsassen to his second win of the season after 221 kilometers. After a perfect lead-out of his team, Bennett relegated Nacer Bouhanni (Cofidis) and John Degenkolb (Giant-Alpecin) to the podium spots. Bennett also claimed the yellow jersey of the GC leader with his win today.

"I have to thank my team. That was a perfect performance and a great start after five weeks without racing," Bennett said.

"This is a perfect start. The team implemented the tactics quite impressively. The guys delivered an optimal sprint lead-out that Sam completed with winning the stage. The win was our target and if you hit it you can be very satisfied. We put quite some pressure on ourselves today. We wanted to take responsibility and not leave anything to chance here. We started the race with this idea in our minds and the team withstood the pressure. We couldn't wish for a better start at our home race", said Enrico Poitschke, sports director of BORA – ARGON 18.

A six-man breakaway group that managed to get away from the peloton up to 4 minutes initially determined the day. On the second climb, the leading riders attacked each other and the peloton started the pursuit. Also thanks to the chase of BORA – ARGON 18 all attackers were reeled in within 20 kilometers to go, all set for preparing the bunch sprint. 

"We want to go to the limit every day. It's no secret that we want to have a say in the overall standings besides the stage victories. Jan [Barta] hasn’t lost any time, thus reaching our second goal for the opening stage. Also tomorrow we will start the day just as focused, as we were today", Poitschke concluded.