Remco Evenepoel (Soudal-QuickStep) said before stage 1 of the Volta ao Algarve that his main mission on a day seemingly made for a bunch sprint was not to lose time needlessly. But through no fault of his own, at one point failing to achieve that goal came a lot closer than he would have liked.
A major crash with around 30 kilometres to go saw half the peloton blocked behind the fallers, with Soudal-QuickStep first-year pro Warre Vangheluwe amongst the fallers, and Evenepoel was only just able to get past.
