Giulio Ciccone (Trek-Segafredo) won a three-way sprint in the first summit finish of the 2023 Volta a Catalunya against Primož Roglič (Jumbo-Visma) and Remco Evenepoel (Soudal-QuickStep).
Stage 1 winner Roglič remains the overall leader after his second place behind Ciccone.
The Italian claimed the victory on the demanding 15-kilometre Vallter climb after Evenepoel launched a series of late accelerations that whittled down the group of favourites to just three riders.
The Belgian's impressive pace saw Colombian National Champion Esteban Chaves (EF Education-EasyPost) reeled in just 500 metres from the line, but he could not stop Ciccone from claiming his second win of the season.
Ciccone dedicated his victory to teammate and compatriot Dario Cataldo, who had been badly injured in a crash close to the line the previous day, and the Italian described his victory over the two main favourites for the Volta a Catalunya as "one of the best wins of my career."
"It was a really fast climb from the bottom of the ascent, Bahrain made a good tempo and then Chaves attacked, but in my mind, I knew I just had to follow Evenepoel and Roglic," he said afterwards. "So I followed their wheels and then I did my best in the last 500 metres.
"In the last couple of weeks, I've lost many times, especially with Roglič - he's won everything. But after a long climb, here we're arriving at 2000 metres of altitude and everything changes. I felt good, and I did my best."
Although the bulk of the Vallter climb did not see any major attacks by the GC favourites barring a brief, late dig by Mikel Landa (Bahrain Victorious), Evenepoel's stinging, prolonged acceleration towards the summit proved more than sufficient to blow the remnants of the leading peloton apart.
The World Champion, Roglič and Ciccone crossed the line with an 11-second advantage over a three-strong group of chasers, led home by Landa and with 2021 Vallter winner Adam Yates (UAE Emirates) in fifth. But thanks to the time bonuses for first and second place on stages, Roglic remains in control overall.
However, Evenepoel's impressive show of mountain strength makes it all but certain the Belgian will do his utmost to give the Slovenian star, just six seconds ahead on GC, a run for his money in the Volta's two remaining summit finishes, on Wednesday at La Molina and above all on the very difficult ascent of Lo Port next Friday.
How it unfolded
If the favourites were in the thick of the action in the stage 2 mountain-top finale, in the first hour of the 165-kilometre stage, the main contenders had been more than happy to see an eight-rider break go clear.
Almost as soon as the peloton had left the coastal resort of Mataró en route for the Pyrenees on the other side of Catalunya, Simone Petilli (Intermarché-Circus-Wanty), Ewen Costiou (Arkéa-Samsic), Christopher Juul-Jensen (Jayco AIUIa), Simon Carr (EF Education-Easy Post), Vadim Pronskiy (Astana Qazaqstan), Julen Amezqueta (Caja Rural-Seguros RGA), Francisco Galván (Kern Pharma) and Xabier Azparren (Euskatel-Euskadi) moved ahead.
Carr, just 20 seconds off the top spot overall before the stage, quickly became the virtual leader of the race as the eight riders' gap initially soared to three minutes. But the steady pace set down by Jumbo-Visma in the main pack on a warm, dry day ensured that despite the stage crossing the rugged terrain of inland Catalunya en route to the Pyrenees, the eight's advantage did not get much higher than that.
The relatively benign slopes of the long but well-surfaced first category Col de la Coubet, its summit in the foothills of the Pyrenees 47 kilometres from the finish, saw little action as Jumbo-Visma Robert Gesink led a very large pack almost to the top. In the break of eight, Petilli went under the summit banner in first place to take a provisional lead in the King of the Mountains. Meanwhile, the main bunch snaked its way down the undulating downhill with the same notable lack of tension that had characterized its ascent.
A brief move ahead for breakaway Juul-Jensen coming off the descent of the Coubet proved unsuccessful and the eight regrouped at the foot of the valley road leading through the medieval town of San Joan de les Abadesses and on towards Vallter. Approaching the intermediate sprint in Camprodon as the road began to rise more significantly, the peloton began to up the pace significantly, and the Jumbo-Visma-led pack squeezed the gap down to 2:30.
A big crash in the front half of the peloton when the road narrowed significantly on a lefthand bend leading onto a bridge left Kenny Elissonde (Trek-Segafredo) and Fabio Felline (Astana Qazaqstan) sprawling on the ground. The Frenchman was later confirmed as an abandon, Trek-Segafredo's second in barely two days. Yet the speed in the peloton barely altered, with Bahrain Victorious, Jumbo-Visma and UAE Team Emirates all present in the numbers as the race hit the lower slopes of the 15 -kilometre Vallter ascent.
Unsurprisingly after he took maximum points on the Coubert, Petilli was one of the strongest in the eight-man break on the lower slopes of the Vallter. And when Galván attacked then Carr tested the waters from the break, the Italian could follow both times. However, Carr's second surging acceleration up through tiny birch woods lining the climb proved too much for the Italian, even as Jumbo-Visma began reeling in the first stragglers from the break.
With 10 kilometres to go, as the route steepened to the climb's hardest middle segment of roughly 8-9% gradient, Carr's advantage remained at around 45 seconds.
Much of the attention in the Volta build-up has centred on Evenepoel and Roglic, but it was Mikel Landa who ordered his Bahrain Victorious troops to make the first serious acceleration in the bunch. The peloton squeezed down to roughly 50 riders in an instant, but while last year's podium finisher and Pyrenean stage winner Joao Almeida (UAE Emirates) was able to fight back from a mechanical, for Egan Bernal (Ineos Grenadiers), the uphill charge proved too much. A few minutes later Richard Carapaz (EF Education-EasyPost), second last year in the Volta, was also dropped.
Wout Poels' merciless drive, followed by Bahrain-Victorious teammate Jack Haig, finally saw Carr reeled in with just under seven kilometres to go. But Carr's teammate Esteban Chaves was waiting to move ahead, with Sepp Kuss (Jumbo-Visma) initially shadowing him before sitting up.
Already a winner of a Volta Pyrenean stage in 2021, Chaves continued his quest for a second with grim determination ahead, his Colombian national champion's jersey a vivid flash of colour against the dull greens of the lines of pine trees on each side of the mountain road. Haig continued on the front of the bunch, but on a marginally easier segment of the climb, Chaves' gap began to rise inexorably, to 30 seconds at 3 kilometres to go.
Evenepoel ordered a teammate to the front, but it was an acceleration by Mikel Landa (Bahrain Victorious) which provided a major sort-out and which cut down the lead group to himself, Evenepoel, Roglic and Ciccone. Just as a brief moment of hesitation allowed the quartet to be all but reabsorbed, Evenepoel began to hammer away at the front, this time forcing Landa to throw in the towel and scooping up Chaves after his brave effort, some 500 metres from the line.
Yet for all the Belgian seemingly had the upper hand, his ferociously fast drive towards the summit could not shake off either Ciccone or Roglic. Roglic looked set to succeed with one of his trademark late charges for victory when he dived through the steepest side of the final right-hand bend yet neither he nor Evenepoel were able to stop Ciccone from forging ahead to win by a narrow, but clear, margin.
The Volta remains in the Pyrenees for a second straight day on stage 3, with one of its most emblematic finishes, at the summit of La Molina ski resort. La Molina is not an excessively difficult ascent, but its uneven mixture of false flats, draggy rises and odd steep ramp are difficult to calculate. Factor in the previous climbs of the Coubet and the Hors Categorie ascent of Col de la Creuta and the sparks will likely fly again.
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