PREVIEW | Tour de Hongrie 2024 - After Giro snub, Wout Poels and Emanuel Buchmann main favourites for GC

From the 8th to the 12th of May, cyclists will take on the Tour de Hongrie. This small Central-European country offers opportunities for various types of riders and features a lineup of stars poised to contend for sprint victories. Here's a preview of the race ahead.

The race begins with a 164-kilometer stage that will feature no climbs. A pan-flat day ends in a city whose name is hard to spell... But the sprinters surely will not mind that; they will have the opportunity to take the stage win and the first leader's jersey.

The second stage of the race is also suited to the sprinters, but it isn't as easy as the opening day. In the final 30 kilometers there are two hilltops where some riders may be dropped and it may affect those who fight for the stage win.

The queen stage? It could be... It is the longest day of the race and it is the most difficult summit finish of the race. A stage with two climbs, but all the attention is in it's end. The climb is 12.1 kilometers at 5.6% but it's most difficult section is clearly the final 3 kilometers. This will create important differences for the overall classification and could be decisive.

In stage 4 the battle for the sprinters returns. However this is a very tricky finaly. Into Etyek, at the end of a mostly flat day, the riders find a hilltop which is 1.3 kilometers at 5.8% - it isn't too difficult, but surely it won't suit all of the fast men.

The final day of racing is quite hard. The first two thirds of the stage are flat but the final third is very difficult. The riders will climb twice to Pecs which is 5.8Km at 6.8% but it's first 2 kilometers average 10%; the race can be destroyed here on any of them. However then the riders will still go up it once again, but have the finish line early in the climb, this one will be 2.3 kilometers long at 8.7% (but featuring quite steeper ascents).

Prediction Tour de Hongrie 2024 overall classification:

*** Emanuel Buchmann, Wout Poels
** Thibau Nys, Diego Ulissi, Yannis Voisard
* Marc Hirschi, Ben Zwiehoff, Igor Arrieta, Harm Vanhoucke, Damien Howson, Kamiel Bonneu

Pick: Emanuel Buchmann