Slovenian Primoz Roglic (Jumbo-Visma) delivered the first blow to the Tour of Catalonia’s table by winning the uphill sprint of stage one, starting and finishing in Sant Feliu de Guíxols (Girona), where he made his first heads-up had with the other big favorite of this race, the Belgian Remco Evenepoel (Quick-Step), who finished second.
Roglic, for example, is the first leader of this Volta thanks to bonuses and is four seconds ahead of Evenepoel. The Dutchman Ide Schelling (Bora-Hansgrohe) was third. The groundbreaking tour of the Costa Brava, with four ports (one in the second category and three in the third category), was enough for the big favorites to try it for the first time.
With five kilometers to go there was a crash involving several cyclists and the one who suffered the most was Italian Dario Cataldo (Trek-Segafredo). Shortly before entering the town of Sant Feliu de Guíxols, his compatriot Kristian Sbaragli (Alpecin) lost control of his bike on a straight line and fell several times.
Another involved was one of the favorites for the general classification and the winner of the Volta in 2021, Briton Adam Yates (UAE Team Emirates), who crossed the finish line with a loss of more than 10 minutes. The Spaniard José Joaquín Rojas (Movistar), the Frenchman Anthony Delaplace (Team Arkéa) and the Australian Michael Storer (Groupama) also fell.
The first port of the day, the third category Alt de Santa Pellaia located at kilometer 26 of the stage, has already been crowned with the day breakaway formed. Among them was a Spanish member, 22-year-old Pau Miquel (Kern Pharma). He was joined by Jetse Bol (Burgos-BH), Alessandro De Marchi (Team Jayco), Rune Herregodts (Intermarché) and Oscar Onley (DSM).
They topped the port by four minutes and nine seconds on the peloton and the lead was reduced from then on. The descent to La Bisbal d’Empordà caused some minor cuts in the peloton, which regrouped as the puncture returned.
The breakaway also managed to reach the top of the second port of the day, second category Alt dels Àngels, by a respectable distance. Although the 3 minutes and 30 seconds were already an indication that the adventure probably would not end.
The difference was getting smaller and smaller on the descent that brought the riders closer to the city of Girona, where they failed to enter, and the work of the Cofidis teams, thinking of a possible victory for Bryan Coquard, and Alpecin-Deceunick managed to leave it for less than a minute with just over 40 miles to go, when they took their foot off the accelerator, satisfied with the job.
Two Euskaltel-Euskadi riders, the Spaniard Txomin Juaristi and Ibai Azurmendi, attacked in the peloton looking to join the leading group. But the attempt, which admittedly remained in the third category Alt de la Ganga, ended with 47 kilometers to go. After that, the distance between the peloton and the front runners was increased again to one and a half minutes.
The last port of the day was the Alt de Romanyà, third category and located 25 kilometers from the finish. During the climb, Pau Miquel could not keep up with the pace of the leading group, which had been reduced to four riders. At the top, the peloton was already only 38 seconds behind.
Thus, in order to find the winner of the stage, the eyes began to turn to the members of the peloton, in which Cofidis again took center stage, this time accompanied by Jumbo-Visma, with Roglic in mind.
After the important crash with five kilometers to go, the peloton was cut off and some of the names that sounded to win this stage were misplaced. Roglic was the one who set up the sprint and Evenepoel, badly placed, tried to come back from behind. He missed another 50 yards to reach it. He paid for his frustration with the steering wheel.
Tomorrow, Tuesday, the peloton will face the first of the three mountain stages of this edition of the Volta, which will end in the Vallter (Girona) ski area, located at 2,135 meters above sea level. There comes the first duel between Roglic and Evenepoel.
The stage starts from Mataró (Barcelona) and covers 165.4 kilometers to Vallter. Before reaching the ski area, two more passes are climbed, the third category Alt de Can Bordoi and the first category Coll de Coubet.
Source: El heraldo
I’m George Gonzalez, a professional journalist and author at The Nation View. With more than 5 years of experience in the field, I specialize in covering sports news for various print media outlets. My passion for writing has enabled me to craft stories that capture the attention of readers all over the world.
