De Gendt flies to Camprodon to take the lead of the “Volta”
March 21 st 2018 - 09:46
Against all the odds, yet exhibiting his trademark skills, Thomas De Gendt (Lotto-Soudal) is now the new leader of the “Volta” a Catalunya after going solo and winning the third stage, which was raced on a shortened course of 153.2 kilometres taking the riders from Sant Cugat del Vallès to Camprodon in the foothills of the Pyrenees. The Belgian, a three times stage winner in the Catalan race, culminated a breakaway that he started accompanied from the start of the stage. He now leads the general classification with a 23 second margin over Alejandro Valverde (Movistar Team) and 29 seconds over Daryl Impey and Simon Yates (Mitchelton-Scott).
De Gent was already part of the first attacks of the stage, emerging with a strong group made up of Clément Chevrier (Ag2r La Mondiale), and Lluís Mas (Caja Rural-Seguros RGA), and finally joined by Pablo Torres (Burgos-BH) and Mikel Bizkarra (Euskadi Basque Country-Murias) that would consolidate a breakaway group of 5 riders on kilometre 25 of the stage. Yet again, the leading pack barely managed to gain a three minute advantage over the peloton, controlled by Movistar Team, who were defending Alejandro Valverde’s lead in the general classification, and at times by Mitchelton-Scott and BMC. But that was no obstacle for the king of breakaways to beautifully round off his performance.
The winner of Giro, Tour and Vuelta stages sent a clear message to his breakaway companions before taking on the day’s last climb, the Port de Collabós, a second category climb, culminating just 13.5 kilometres short of the finish line. At that moment of the race, only Bizkarra and Mas managed to stay with the Belgian after the Coll de Bracon (first category climb).
The favourites for the general classification also began to make a move in the day’s last climb, sparked by Dan Martin (UAE Team Emirates), winner of the 2013 “Volta”, and eventually leading to a chasing group made up of Nairo Quintana (Movistar Team), Thibaut Pinot (Groupama-FDJ), Mathias Frank (Ag2r La Mondiale) and Simon Yates (Mitchelton-Scott), who in spite of being 20 seconds ahead of the peloton with a strong headwind, were neutralised in the last uphill stretch, where De Gendt resisted and arrived with a 20 second margin over the main group.
“It was only with 200 meters left that I thought I could win. I knew that the last two kilometres to the finish were uphill, and there was a lot of wind, and I knew that I had great riders chasing me. I tried to look behind, but I struggled with the sun. In fact, I thought there was a rider behind me, when it was a motorbike, but I sprinted for the line anyway”, said De Gendt about the end of the stage. And so, he now adds a third stage win in the “Volta” to his tally (Port Ainé in 2016 and Barcelona in 2013). “Port Ainé was maybe a bit harder. It was a summit finish, but with the headwind today, if we check the watts, it would probably be the same effort”, he added.
At the same time he shared his doubts about his options of remaining leader and battling for the general classification: “my idea was to ride with the rest to have more options of winning a stage towards the end of the “Volta”. Having this jersey is an added bonus, but tomorrow, with a finish in La Molina, if the stage plays out as it has the last few years, it’ll probably be too much for me”, concluded the race leader.