Dylan Groenewegen narrowly takes stage 1 of 2024 Tour of Slovenia ahead of in form Alexander Kristoff

Team Jayco AlUla's Dylan Groenewegen has sprinted to victory from the bunch on the opening stage of the 2024 Tour of Slovenia, moving into the early overall race lead as a result.

Five riders managed to get themselves into the breakaway of the day, including a pair of Slovenian's looking to impress on home roads. The peloton wasn't giving the breakaway too much of a leash however, keeping the distance around the two minute mark for the majority of the first half of the day.

With 25km to go, all but one of the break were caught, leaving just the Slovenian, Matic Zumer out front on his own. With 8.1 kilometres to go, he too had been swallowed up by the peloton though, and the focus was fully switched to preparing for the upcoming bunch sprint finale.

After an intermediate sprint with 6km to go however, Irish national champion Ben Healy and Ecuadorian national champion Jhonatan Narvaez went on the counter attack, attempting to deny the sprinters any opportunity to compete for the win. Despite the duo working well together and attempting to press on, the pair of national champions weren't allowed to upset the odds and with 1.5km to go, they were both caught.

In the sprint for the line, Alexander Kristoff opened things up and in a very close finale between the Norwegian and Dylan Groenewegen, it went up to the photo finish to decide a winner. After a scrutinous look by the jury, it was Groenewegen who was awarded the win.

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