For the second season in a row, Magnus Cort Nielsen has sprinted to the stage win in the first stage of the Tour of Denmark. Last year he did it from a breakaway, this year, he has won from the bunch, beating Topsport’s Jasper De Buyst and Valerio Agnoli of Astana.

A break of 6 was reeled in with 27km remaining by a peloton that was led by Astana and Tinkoff-Saxo. The remaining kilometers were very fast as sprint teams tried to set up their sprinters whileother teams tried to keep their GC hope safe.

In the end, despite the WorldTour teams best efforts, once Cort opened up his sprint, there was no one who could come round the highly talented youngster who will ride for Orica-Greenedge next year.

Almost from the gun, a break of six went, containing Mikkel Mortensen (Riwal Platform), John Murphy (United Healthcare), Nico Sijmens (Wanty), Christopher Williams (Team Novo Nordisk), Rasmus Quaade (Trefor - Bluewater) and Martin Toft Madsen (Team Post Denmark).

They worked well together but despite this, the peloton was clearly not in a giving mood and they were never allowed an advantage of more than 2:30 on the 157km stage from Hobro to Mariager.

However, they were out long enough to contest all of the three GPM sprints but not the intermediate sprint. Mortensen took the first sprint from Murphy, Quaade and Sijmens, meaning they all scored 10, 6, 4 and 2 points respectively.

Meanwhile, James Van Landschoot from Wanty beacmes the race’s first DNF.

Murphy won the second sprint, followed by Quaade, Mortensen and Sijmens and the result was almost the exact same at the final GPM sprint, with the exception of Williams finishing fourth in the final competition instead of Sijmens. This all meant that Murphy took an early lead in the GPM competition, with a score of 26 points, 8 clear of Mortensen.

Not long after the final GPM sprint, they were reeled in by the Astana and Tinkoff-Saxo led peloton and Tom Van Asbroeck, believed to be heading to Cannondale if they exist next year, won that ahead of Lars Bak and Jasper De Buyst. Van Asbroeck gets 5 points, Bak 3 and De Buyst 1.

The finale was fast and when Magnus Cort Nielsen of Cult Energy launched his sprint, no one could beat him and he was left to celebrate another leaders jersey and opening stage win in the Tour of Denmark.

De Buyst was second, possibly regretting his earlier sprint to help Van Asbroeck, his teammate, get those intermediate sprint points and Valerio Agnoli, usually Vincenzo Nibali’s loyal domestique, became a sprinter for the day and did very well to take third.

Tommorrow’s second stage follows a similar route, with 4 climbs and two intermediate sprints to be contested before what should be another bunch finish on the 195km stage from Skive to Aarhus.