Francesco Manuel Bongiorno (Bardiani) put his big disappointment from the penultimate stage of the Giro d’Italia behind him when he won today’s queen stage of the Tour de Slovenie. The Italian was the fastest from a trio that escaped on the climb to the finish while Tiago Machado (NetApp) had to settle for second but could console himself with the leader’s jersey that he took off Michael Matthews’ shoulders.

A few weeks ago the entire cycling world raged when a stupid cycling fan crushed Francesco Bongiorno’s hopes of winning the big mountain stage of the Giro d’Italia that finished on the top of the Monte Zoncolan. Today he took his revenge when he won the queen stage of the Tour de Slovenie, the first professional victory of his short career.

One day after his teammate Sonny Colbrelli had won a stage, Bongiorno emerged as one of the strongest climbers in the race when the queen stage came to an end on a hard climb to the finish in Trije Kralji. Together with Tiago Machado and Ilnur Zakarin (Rusvelo), he escaped on the final ascent and the trio combined forces to put more than 30 seconds into their nearest chasers.

In the end, it all came down to a sprint between those three riders and here Bongiorno was the strongest. He put 1 second into Machado while Zakarin struggled in the finale and lost 7 seconds to the stage winner. 29 seconds later Matteo Rabottini (Neri Sottoli) and Simon Yates (Orica-GreenEDGE) crossed the line to complete the top 5.

The stage was held on a 192km course from Rogaska Slatina to Trije Kralji and was a very hard affair. The first section included three smaller climbs and several flat stretches but it was the final climb to the finish that was expected to do the damage.

Early on Klemen Stimulak (Adria Mobil), Antonino Parrinello (Androni), Andrea Fedi (Neri Sottoli), Edward Theuns (Topsport), Pavel Brutt (Katusha) and Alessandro Malaguti (Vini Fantini) escaped and they were allowed to build a 5-minute advantage before Lampre-Merida took control. They got some help from Cannondale and those two teams kept the gap stable for most of the day.

Up ahead, Stimulak picked up a lot of KOM points while Fedi was the fastest in the intermediate sprints. In the feed zone, the peloton slowed down significantly and the escapees benefited from this to increase their advantage to a maximum of 6.20.

As they approached the second climb, the peloton accelerated significantly and brought the gap down to less than 3 minutes. Stefano Pirazzi (Bardiani) attacked on the ascent and stayed clear for a little while but as he didn’t get any closer to the front, he fell back to the peloton.

On the third climb, Theuns and Malaguti got dropped and at the top, the remaining four escapees were less than 2 minutes ahead as Cannondale was now riding really hard. They fought hard to stay clear but with 10km to go, it was all back together.

As the climb started, several riders fell off and halfway up the ascent, only Simon Yates, Francesco Manuel Bongiorno, Tiago Machado, Linur Zakarin, Jure Golčer, Matteo Rabottini and one other rider was left. As the selection continued, Mchado, Bongiorno and Zakarin got clear and quickly build a 30-second advantage over their nearest chasers.

More riders joined the chase group which was now made up of Kristijan Koren, Damiano Caruso, Simon Yates, Emanuele Sella, Angelo Pagani, Matteo Rabottini and Eliot Lietaer. The gap remained stable at 30 seconds for the final 3km and it all came down to a sprint from the trio where Bongiorno emerged as the strongest. In the end, the chase group splintered and it was Yates and Rabottini who were closest to the leaders while local hero Koren had to settle for sixth.

As Machado had been the best of the trio in the opening time trial, he took over the lead and is now in a very good position to win the race overall. The final stage only has two small category 3 climbs in the first half and a flat finale should ensure a bunch sprint.