2015

36th Tour de Hongrie

For it's 90th anniversary, Tour de Hongrie reemerged from the ashes after a seven-year-long break.

The first stage of the Tour was a short prologue in Szombathely, where Manuel Porzner (Team Stölting) made history: the German rider won the stage with an average speed of 61,7 km/h, which is still the fastest in the history of the race. Porzner lost the yellow jersey on Stage 1, where Slovak Maroš Kováč triumphed from a breakaway, but he won in Karcag two days later from a bunch sprint.

The faith of this Tour de Hongrie was decided by another breakaway though. In Stage 2, a group of eight riders flew away from the peloton, including three from Austrian Continental Team Amplatz-BMC (Marek Canecky, Andi Bajc, Maximilian Kuen) and two from Luxembourgish Continental Team Differdange - Losch (Tom Thill and Krisztián Lovassy). In the end, five riders gained advantages of 2 to 3 minutes ahead of the peloton: Canecky won ahead of Thill, Kuen, Bajc and James Early (Team Stölting). This meant that these five riders had a huge chance to win the UCI 2.2 stage race on the slopes of Kékestető two days later.

Differdange and Amplatz were clearly the strongest teams in the bunch, so they controlled the remaining stages for a GC fight between the two best climbers of their teams: Andi Bajc and Tom Thill. Bajc won the mountain finish on the top of Kékestető, but Thill stayed close - he only lost 11 seconds, which meant he took the leaders jersey, and kept it until the end.

Team Amplatz-BMC could console themselves with another victory though: Slovenian Professional Jan Tratnik won the last stage in Budapest. Since then, he won a stage in the Giro d'Italia, and started his 5th year as a WorldTour rider. The best Hungarian was Krisztián Lovassy, who crossed the finish line third in Budapest, and finished eighth in GC.

The 36th edition was organised by Vuelta Ltd. and Károly Eisenkrammer, who was responsible for the race between 2001 and 2005.

36th Tour de Hongrie (4-9 August 2015, 702 km)

Stage winners:
Prologue (Szombathely, 1,2 km, individual time trial): Manuel Porzner (German, Team Stölting) - in yellow: Porzner
Stage 1 (Szombathely - Keszthely, 112 km): Maroš Kováč (Slovak, Kemo Dukla Trencin) - in yellow: Kováč
Stage 2 (Balatonföldvár - Kecskemét, 200 km): Marek Canecky (Slovak, Amplatz - BMC) - in yellow: Canecky
Stage 3 (Abony - Karcag, 136 km): Manuel Porzner (German, Team Stölting) - in yellow: Canecky
Stage 4 (Karcag - Kékestető, 146 km): Andi Bajc (Slovenian, Amplatz - BMC) - in yellow: Tom Thill (Luxembourgish, Team Differdange - Losch)
Stage 5 (Gyöngyös - Budapest, 105 km): Jan Tratnik (Slovenian, Amplatz - BMC)

General Classification:
1. Tom Thill (Luxembourgish, Team Differdange - Losch) 15:31:02
2. Andi Bajc (Slovenian, Amplatz - BMC) +0:44
3. James Early (New Zealander, Team Stölting) +1:51
4. Patrik Tybor (Slovak, Kemo Dukla Trencin) +2:02
5. Folkert Oostra (Dutch, West - Frisia) +2:11
6. Moritz Backofen (German, Team Stölting) +3:19
7. Stefan Stefanovic (National Team of Serbia) +3:27
8. Lovassy Krisztián (Hungarian, Team Differdange - Losch) +3:35
9. Johan Coenen (Belgian, Team Differdange - Losch) +3:37
10. Janis Dakteris (Latvian, Team Differdange - Losch) +3:52

Winner of the Teams Classification: Amplatz - BMC (Austrian)

Winner of the Points Classification: Jan Tratnik (Slovenian, Amplatz - BMC)

Winner of the Mountains Classification: Marius Hafsaas (Norwegian, Team FixIT.no)

Winner of the Youth Classification: Moritz Backofen (German, Team Stölting)