The second stage of the ŠkodaTour de Luxembourg was reserved for the sprinters.
Admittedly, a breakaway group of seven riders managed to escape early on, but the sprinters’ teams gave them no chance over the 168.4 km between Remich and Mamer. In the end, it was Luxembourg’s own Mathieu Kockelmann (Luxembourg National Team) who triumphed in the bunch sprint, right in front of the birthplace of double Tour de France winner Nicolas Frantz, finishing ahead of Andrea Vendrame (Decathlon AG2R La Mondiale) and Tom Donnenwirth (Groupama-FDJ). Romain Grégoire (Groupama-FDJ) retains the yellow jersey as overall race leader.

The day’s breakaway consisted of Gilles Baptiste (Arkéa-B&B Hotels), Jonas Geens (Team Flanders-Baloise), Victor Papon (Wagner-Bazin), Pedro Pinto (Efapel Cycling), Loïc Bettendorff (Hrinkow Advarics), Malte Hellerup (Team Coloquick), and Mil Morang (Luxembourg National Team). They built up a gap of four and a half minutes, but as on the previous day, the escape was caught before the finish, setting up a mass sprint.

Mathieu Kockelmann (Luxembourg National Team), stage winner: “I didn’t have a lead-out train for the sprint, so I tried to stay calm and follow the right opponents. I placed myself behind Marijn van den Berg (EF Education-EasyPost), who launched his sprint too early. Since I had studied videos of previous finishes in Mamer, I knew that patience was key. I am overjoyed. I have no words to describe what it means to win a stage wearing the national team jersey. I’m still in the U23 category, and in this race, we have the smallest team. So this is incredible.”

Romain Grégoire (Groupama-FDJ), overall leader: “It’s cool to wear the yellow jersey. But tomorrow, it will be tough to keep it. It was a good day. People think it’s a flat stage, but in Luxembourg, it’s always hilly. Even this kind of stage hurts the legs. Still, I enjoyed it. Tomorrow will be a really tough stage. It could suit me. We’ll approach it like a one-day race.”