In a leg-breaking day with an explosive and rising finish, the Slovenian Primoz Roglic (Jumbo Visma) won the opening stage of the Volta a Catalunya 2023, developed over 164.6 kilometers around Sant Feliu de Guíxols.
Roglic was clearly superior in a sprint that had a slight incline, beating his main rival, world champion Remco Evenepoel (Soudal-Quic Step). In third place was the Dutchman Ide Schelling (BORA-hansgrohe).
The escape of the day was carried out by the Belgian Rune Herregodts (Intermarché – Circus – Wanty), the Spanish Pau Miquel (Kern Pharma Team), the British Oscar Onley (Team DSM), the Dutch Jetse Bol (Burgos-BH) and the Italian Alessandro de Marchi (Team Jayco AlUla).
Going into the final 40 kilometres, Alpecin-Deceuninck, Jumbo Visma and UAE Team Emirates took over the pursuit and cut the breakaway lead considerably.
With less than 7 kilometers to go, there was a regrouping and thus the compact peloton faced the end of the opening day of the race, in which Tobias Foss (Jumbo-Visma) set the pace to stretch the pack and leave his teammate Primoz Roglic in good position to take the victory to the packaging.
“It’s great to win this stage! Today the race was crazy, with many fans on the roadside. My teammates have done a great job and I had the right legs to finish. I’m here to win the general classification, but it’s only the first stage. There are still six difficult stages to go, so we will take it day by day,” said Roglic.
The best located by America were the Canadian Michael Woods (Israel-Premier Tech) in seat 13; the Colombians Esteban Chaves (EF Education-EasyPost) and Rigoberto Uran (EF Education-EasyPost), in positions 17 and 21, respectively, as well as the Ecuadorian Richard Carapaz (EF Education-EasyPost) in 27th place. The star Egan Bernal (INEOS-Grenadiers) finished in 32nd place.
This Tuesday the second part of the Catalan round will take place, over 165.4 kilometers between Mataró and Vallter, with the first finish up. The successor to Colombian Sergio Higuita, last year’s champion, will be announced on Sunday in Barcelona.
Source: Revista Mundo Ciclístico y Ciclo 21