While barely eight days separate the respective finishes of Paris-Nice and Tirreno-Adriatico last Sunday and the start of the Volta a Catalunya next week, March's three WorldTour stage races have a very different feel. Paris-Nice and Tirreno tend to form part of a plotline leading towards Milan-San Remo and then the northern Classics and while any Grand Tour candidates participating in either stage race can have a significant effect on results (i.e. win), in terms of pure numbers, normally they remain in a minority.
Catalunya, on the other hand, is the first major European stage race of the season where a considerable number of top GC names annually emerge to test their form. This year alone and almost without anybody noticing, for example, in its lineup, Catalunya manages to boast two Tour de France winners, (Geraint Thomas and Egan Bernal), four riders with a Giro d'Italia in their palmarès (Bernal, Primož Roglič, Tao Geoghegan Hart, Nairo Quintana) and four who can say the same about the Vuelta a España (Roglič, Simon Yates, Quintana and Sepp Kuss). Considering neither Tadej Pogačar, a three-time Tour winner and last year's Volta champion nor Jonas Vingegaard - set to be the top favourite in Pogačar's stead this time round but finally a late withdrawal - are present, that's some achievement.
