Saturday’s taxing penultimate stage of the 105th Volta a Catalunya concluded in the same manner as Friday–with Jonas Vingegaard winning in the mountains. The Dane padded his race lead, one that seems insurmountable with just Barcelona to tour.
Preliminaries
Vingegaard took almost a minute’s lead at the top of the table with Friday’s victory. Behind him were stacked Felix Gall, Lenny Martinez, Florian Lipowitz, Valentin Paret-Peintre and Remco Evenepoel, a quintet that could still bid for the race lead, but would more likely scrap for the final podium.
Tom Pidcock, having crashed in Friday’s action and dropped from second to 74th, did not start.
The Course
Saturday’s final summit finish of the 105th edition was a Cat. 1 climb up to Queralt, but the brutal Coll de Predell in the middle of the route has an average grade of 11 percent in its final 5.5 km and would surely elicit shenanigans.
Mountains classification leader Baptiste Veistroffer needed to fend off Giulio Ciccone, who in one stage almost matched the Frenchman’s points total amassed over several stages.
The action was fast and furious right from the green light in Berga with the peloton splitting and re-forming. The 15-strong breakaway that formed on the way to Cat. 3 Coll de la Batallola contained Ciccone but no Veistroffer. Richard Carapaz was best placed on GC at 23rd, +3:55. The intrepid band of dreamers tipped over 1:45 ahead of the Visma-led peloton, Ciccone first to draw within one point of Veistroffer.
Coll de Pradell is 14.6 km at 6.8 percent, but its final grades are nasty. Fugitives Marc Soler and Byron Munton attacked, Ciccone and Carapaz bridging over 1.4 km from the crest. Behind, the peloton was vastly streamlined by the unrelenting slopes. Soler took the maximum points to put him in second place after Ciccone, 53 points to 58.
Penultimate climb, Cat. 1 Collada de Sant Isidre was brief at 5 km but stiff at 7.5 percent. Soler, Ciccone and Carapaz started up with a 1:20 lead over the green-stripe jersey group. Ciccone attacked to take the maximum KOM points to extend his classification lead. In the peloton, 18th place Oscar Onley made a surge, creating a further selection before…
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