Tadej Pogačar (UAE Team Emirates) sealed a dominant overall victory at the Volta a Catalunya with a fourth stage win of the week from the reduced bunch sprint on stage 7 in Barcelona.
The Slovenian came through late in the dash for the line to outpace Dorian Godon (Decathlon AG2R La Mondiale) and Guillaume Martin (Cofidis) in the closing sprint, eventually crossing the line almost a bike length ahead of his rivals.
“I’m so happy to take the win. It wasn’t the original plan. Today we tried to go with Marc Soler,” said Pogačar after the stage. “He went on the first lap on the climb. He did a super good job. I was trying to follow wheels and stay in front.
“João Almeida set a good pace on the climb and we were a small group in the front. He made a good attack on the last small climb and almost came to the finish. I wish he could arrive but I’m happy to take this win, too.”
Pogačar lay in wait in the reduced peloton of 23 heading into the final run towards the finish line, taking it up at the front in the closing metres after his UAE teammate João Almeida had seen a move in the final kilometres closed down.
The Portuguese rider was caught just after racing under the flamme rouge, leaving the likes of Israel-Premier Tech and Decathlon AG2R La Mondiale a short window to try and set up the sprint.
Godon and Martin both hit the front along with Stephen Williams (Israel-Premier Tech) to round off a typically attacking race over the closing circuits in Montjuïc Park, but once again it was Pogačar who came through to take the spoils.
With four stage wins this week, he duly sealed the overall title on his race debut. Also the mountain and points classification winner, Pogačar wins the Volta a Catalunya by 3:41 from Mikel Landa (Soudal-QuickStep), while Egan Bernal (Ineos Grenadiers) rounds out the podium at 5:03 down.
How it unfolded
On an intermittently drizzly morning in Barcelona’s Placa d’España, five riders took off from on the flat early segment of the stage. Jimmy Janssens (Alpecin-Deceuninck), Harrison Wood (Cofidis) and Idar Andersen (Uno-X were the first to try their luck and then Georg Steinhauser (EF Education-Easypost) and Ander Okamika (Burgos-BH) completed the break of the day.
The move gained a 90-second gap as they powered onto the long, grinding Cat.3 climb of Coll de la Creu d’Ordal. Janssens crossed the summit in first place as the peloton wended its way through the Serra d’Ordal and headed down to the coast, prior to the fast dash back past…
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