British sprinter Ethan Vernon won his second WorldTour race of 2026 on Thursday, victorious on the shortened stage four at the Volta a Catalunya.
The NSN Cycling rider was one of the hot favourites on what became a sprint stage, and led the sprint in to the final 200m, with Dorian Godon (Ineos Grenadiers) unable to come round. Tom Pidcock (Pinarello Q36.5) finished third.
Godon continued in the race lead as a result, with Pidcock moving up to second overall, jumping over Remco Evenepoel (Red Bull-Bora-hansgrohe) due to bonus seconds.
Vernon has now won three stages at Catalunya, out of 14 pro wins. It was his second WorldTour victory of the year after winning at the Tour Down Under in January.
"It hasn't gone to plan for us the first few days, and then we were gifted an other opportunity last night," Vernon said post-stage. "The boys really committed and this one means an extra lot for everyone. It wasn't meant to be today, and I'm super happy with the boys, and another win at Catalunya.
"It's super special, my first pro win was here in 2022 with Quick-Step and now my third win here with NSN. It's the home race of our new sponsors NSN, so I guess this one is just as special as the other two."
The stage had been shortened due to high winds, which took out the hors categorie summit finish, making a bunch sprint almost certain.
"I think we wanted to control it for a sprint, and in the end, quite a small break went, which played to the favour of me as a sprinter, because it meant the day was a bit slower than normal," he continued. "It played into the hands of the fast men at the end, and we made the most of it.
"We saw the new plan last night on VeloViewer, we studied it a lot and made a new plan. The plan was to go into the roundabout in first, that was super close to the finish. Normally you'd start your sprint before the roundabout, but the first race was to go into the roundabout first, and then everyone stayed in the same position coming out of it."
