The opening day at CRO Race saw the peloton take on a 162 kilometre long route from Vodice to Sinj, and a stage that was punctuated by a long but steady climb in the middle of the parcours. Team dsm-firmenich PostNL helped to take control at the front of the peloton behind the breakaway, riding a good tempo to reel them in as the stage progressed, with the catch made just before ten kilometres to go.
Coming into the final the team looked to bring forward fast finisher Pavel Bittner, who was full of confidence after recent victories at the Vuelta a España. However, it was a tight and hectic closing three kilometres which made moving up together tough. Sean Flynn tried to bring Tobias Lund Andresen and Bittner forward but they were squeezed out from following his wheel, before the same then happened when Lund Andresen tried to position Bittner for the gallop to the line. In the end, Bittner couldn’t really get out to produce a full sprint, crossing the line just outside the top ten on the stage.
Bittner said: “We went into today’s stage with the goal of doing the sprint with me in the finish. We have a really strong and ambitious team so took the initiative in the race and we did some strong pulls with Mees. In the end we made some tactical mistakes and in the final we didn’t make the right decisions on which side to take and I did not have the space to open up my sprint. The guys are on a high level though so we will not hang our heads and instead we’ll learn from it. I felt like I had good legs and there are still a lot of chances so I am confident that we can get some nice results in the next days.”