What a strange race that is the tour of Ukraine ! Ranked PTHC, it consists on a 7,8 km hilly prologue, on a relatively short road race with a steep finish, and on a longuer flat ITT. Depending on the outcome of 2nd stage, it could favor a puncheur or a time trialist. But before that, a bit of history :

Tour of Ukraine has been run since 2014, and alternated between PTHC (2014-2017 ; 2022-) and HC (2018-2021). There were 5 stages until 2017, and the current format has been unchanged since then.

This last years, the race was generally won by stage-racers, who were good on the time-trials, and decent in the hills. The only exception was Ion Izagirre, who won the race in 2018 for Iberia - Team Degenkolb, and is more a puncheur with good TT abilities. The other recent winners were Ryan Eastman (2020, for Azteca – NBCSN), a good stage-racer now riding for Duolingo, and Aleksandr Pluchkin, who won in 2019 and 2021 for Team Popo4Ever p/b Nemiroff. The Moldavian even won all three stages of the race in 2019, and performance we’re not sure we’ll see again.



But let’s come back to today. Pluchkin is here again, but with a the new classification as PTHC, he will have a hard time to repeat his last year victory. Let’s have a look to who the favorites are :



The field is stacked here in Ukraine : world star Taylor Phinney is the best time trialist to have enlisted, and he’s also the best in the hills among the TT specialists. If someone can repeat Pluchkin performance, that’s him.
His first opponent should be Tom Wirtgen who, in a good day, could turn the table and take a prestigious victory. His team looks slightly better overall, but they’ll have to make the race hard for Phinney and Tao Geoghegan Hart to cause problem for the Isostar armada. Behind these two clear favorites, Yuttana Mano has the qualities to bring a good result for King Power and should find a place on the podium if the second stage is hard enough.

Other good stage racers are Egan Bernal (who won the third stage and the youth jersey last year), Omar Fraile, who has a good support with Ivo Oliveira, Jack Haig, Nicola Conci, Jack Bobridge and veteran Ion Izagirre.

Name	MO	HI	TT	ST	RS	RC	AC	DH	PR
Taylor Phinney	85	77	83	77	74	76	75	71	83
Tom Wirtgen	78	75	81	76	75	75	72	64	80
Yuttana Mano	72	75	79	72	73	74	66	72	77
Omar Fraile	76	72	79	74	76	72	66	65	79
Ivo Oliveira	70	72	79	76	72	67	72	68	79
Martijn Keizer	79	69	79	72	76	74	70	59	79
Egan Bernal	81	74	78	80	80	82	69	69	76
Jack Haig	82	74	77	76	75	78	73	67	77
Nicola Conci	77	74	77	76	75	78	68	71	77
Jack Bobridge	68	82	76	73	73	68	79	65	76
Ion Izagirre	73	80	76	72	71	67	63	69	76
Tao Geoghegan Hart	79	74	76	76	74	75	69	70	76

The pure TT guys will probably not be the overall winners – barring a especially easy second stage and big gaps on last stages. But with one prologue and a mi-length TT, they could bring up to two stages win home. Among those, Marlen Zmorka has to be the favorite. He’s the second best TT-ist in the field – behind only Phinney – and has good physical stats. Luke Durbridge, Emilien Viennet, Damien Howson and Jasha Sütterlin are also good contenders here in Ukraine.

Name	TT	ST	RS	RC	PR
Marlen Zmorka	82	74	75	72	82
Luke Durbridge	81	73	74	70	81
Emilien Viennet	80	75	75	72	80
Damien Howson	80	73	74	72	80
Jasha Sütterlin	80	73	77	67	80
Nikita Razumov	79	75	72	73	79
Michael Hepburn	79	74	77	72	79
Marcel Kittel	79	71	67	63	79
Phan Age Haugard	79	74	77	70	79
Justas Beniusis	79	71	73	72	78

The time-trials should prevent the top pure puncheurs who attend here to win the overall GC, but they still have a decent shot at victory if they don’t lose too much time.
And they are plenty ! Best of them has to be Peter Sagan, who had a good victory in Luxembourg earlier this month, just in front of Jay McCarthy, who will want to have his revenge. Emanuel Buchmann will want to continue his good performance from Tirreno-Adriatico – he’s accompagnied by Patrick Müller, who will want to amend for his pour Classique du Grand Duché. Moser once again has a strong team in support of Sagan, with Simone Ponzi and Cesare di Maggio.

Name	MO	HI	ST	RS	AC	DH
Peter Sagan	74	83	78	74	76	78
Yevgeniy Gidich	76	82	78	77	75	68
Jay McCarthy	67	82	80	75	74	71
Emanuel Buchmann	76	81	73	74	73	70
Tejay Van Garderen	70	80	75	72	76	73
Odd Christian Eiking	69	80	78	74	76	69
Simone Ponzi	69	80	71	66	74	70
Pedro Miguel Paulinho	75	80	70	72	75	62
Patrick Müller	65	80	76	71	73	63
Oleksandr Prevar	71	80	77	70	73	66
Cesare Di Maggio	63	80	70	65	72	71

A very strong field, for the return of the Tour of Ukraine in PTHC should ensure a fierce battle for each stage and for the GC. See you tomorrow for the race!