Primoz Roglic sealed victory in the Volta a Catalunya as Remco Evenepoel’s final-stage win was not enough to overhaul his rival.
Roglic held a 10-second advantage over the Belgian going into the hilly final stage and while Evenepoel made his move with 30km to go to set up a riveting finale, he could not shake off the Slovenian who dug deep to withstand a number of accelerations.
Evenepoel launched his attack just before the third peak of the Alt del Castell de Montjuïc, with only Roglic and Marc Soler able to go with him. It was the indefatigable Roglic who led the way into the final descent but Evenepoel sprinted ahead as the finish line neared to claim a last-gasp stage win, with Soler settling for third.
“I did some super nice steps this week,” said Roglic, whose winning margin of six seconds is the slimmest since 2015. “I’m on the way of building up, I need these kind of things to improve and be good.
“Now, first holidays and celebrations, then build up towards the Giro. I’m honoured and super pleased to be among the winners of one of the oldest races. It was definitely something missing, so I’m honoured, happy. Big thanks to my guys around me, we can celebrate.”
Evenpoel, who secured the mountain classification by one point on the final climb of the race, was happy with his display. “It was a tough one,” he said. “As I said before it was going to be really hard to drop Primoz on a course like this. It was a nice battle with Primoz and I’m happy I could beat him in a sprint.
“It’s Primoz Roglic. He’s one of the strongest riders in the world. He’s in really good shape. When he’s in top shape he’s probably the best rider in the world. I knew if there was one guy who was going to follow me, it was him.
“I was hoping to come here for the podium and to win some stages and in the end coming second by only six seconds, it’s almost the same. When you see how strong I was and how strong Primoz was, one of us was meant to be the winner of this beautiful race.”
