Terrific Thibau Nys stars again with summit victory on Queen Stage of 2024 Tour de Hongrie

On the first GC day at the 2024 Tour de Hongrie, Thibau Nys has taken a statement summit victory for Lidl-Trek in a thrilling finale.

With six riders getting themselves into the day's breakaway, included in the lead group were two of stage 2 winner, Mark Cavendish's Astana Qazaqstan Team leadout train as both Michael Morkov and Yevgeniy Gidich went on the attack.

As the climb towards the line began, just two of the break remained out front, although only around 55 seconds ahead of the peloton. With 12.5km to go, race leader Martin Voltr of the Pierre Baquette Cycling team then attacked from the peloton although he didn't last long before being caught. With 9km to go, all the earlier attackers had been caught as well, with the peloton back at the front of the race.

With the Tudor Pro Cycling Team controlling things at the front of the bunch, the pace wasn't exactly blistering, with a large group still together heading into the final 3km. When Ben Zwiehoff of BORA - hansgrohe took over though, things accelerated and Emanuel Buchmann countered with 2.8km to go, with Marc Hirschi following.

Into the final kilometre though, Buchmann was a solo leader by around 5 or 6 seconds. As the chase stalled behind, the German was still in the final hundred metres before Thibau Nys powered around at the very last to take the stage win.