Reigning under-23 World Champion Axel Laurance secured his first victory at WorldTour level in the Volta a Catalunya on Friday, but as the Frenchman admitted afterwards, he did not know for certain he had taken the victory until his teammates began to congratulate him.
Stage 5 of the Volta a Catalunya was a fast and furious affair, run off at nearly 50 kph in the first hour and with no attacks going clear for good until the rugged 167.3-kilometre stage was nearing its halfway point.
As a consequence, the 22-year-old first-year-pro said afterwards, he had no idea if there were still one or two breakaways up the road when he sprinted for the line. But Laurance opted to go for it, just in case – and after a near-miss at the Bretagne Classic-Ouest France last year, his prudence was rewarded with his first WorldTour victory.
“I’m obviously very, very happy with this,” Laurance, already a winner of a CroTour stage in 2022 and at the Etoile de Bessèges earlier this year, told Cyclingnews afterwards. To date he’s only done a scant week of racing at WorldTour level – Bretagne last year, Milan-San Remo last Saturday and now Catalunya, Laurance pointed out, and “Of course I didn’t expect to win right away. But it’s good to tick a first WorldTour win off.”
On a tough day of racing described by Tadej Pogačar as the hardest of the race in terms of attacking, Laurance said the key to success was two-fold: Getting over the last category 2 climb, the Alt de la Creu d’Aragall with 30 kilometres to go, staying well-placed and ahead in the pack, then being ready to go for it in the finale.
“We had no idea if the break of the day” – finally formed of five riders and caught on the cat.2 climb – “could make it to the finish or not. There were two hours of fighting for the break and so everybody was feeling the pace even before we got to that last climb.”
“But I was always doing well, I had a team that supported me well and I was on Pogačar’s wheel all the way up, I didn’t have to ease back, and that made me think I was in good shape for the victory.”
With only 40 riders or so in the front peloton once they’d gone over the Creu d’Aragall, and virtually none of them sprinters, Laurance said his optimism began to climb fast. Even though a big second group containing fastmen of the calibre of stage 4 winner Marijn van den Berg (EF Education-EasyPost) – who finally placed second…
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