Superman López resists while Formolo wins the final battle
March 31 st 2019 - 16:34 [GMT + 2]
The spectacular 99th edition of the Volta Ciclista a Catalunya came to an end with a spectacular finale on its closing day, in a 143.1-kilometre stage finishing in the traditional Montjuïc circuit, in Barcelona. A great battle was fought out among the favourites, making Miguel Ángel López (Astana) sweat and work hard to secure the overall victory, while Davide Formolo (Bora – Hansgrohe) proved himself with an individual breakaway to take the final stage win.
The Italian rider was part of a strong breakaway group from the start, with the King Of Mountains, Thomas De Gendt, Carlos Verona, another regular this week, James Knoxx, Alexis Gougeard, Alexander Riabushenko, Danilo Wyss, Patrick Bevin, Jesús Herrada, Fernando Barceló and Nick Van der Lijke. They were all kept in check by Team Sky in a very demanding initial section of the stage; nonetheless, they were able to maintain their margin (entering the Catalan capital with a little over 2 minutes clear) to take the favourites for the win by surprise.
The battle for the overall victory of the “Volta” was close to changing in the last section of the day with the efforts of brothers Adam and Simon Yates (Mitchelton – Scott), particularly the former, second in the general classification, who launched an attack riding a few solo loops of the Montjuïc circuit, becoming virtual leader with a margin of over half a minute and threatening the leader’s team, Astana, which had to catch up with him on the final descent.
At that point, Formolo had already celebrated his victory with a minute advantage over a group of favourites composed of only 13 riders. In doing so, the Italian rider has added the second victory to his team Bora-Hansgrohe, after Max Schachmann’s feat in Sant Cugat del Vallés. And so, the Colombian rider López, aka Superman, celebrated the overall victory, accompanied by Adam Yates (Mitchelton-Scott) and Egan Bernal (Team Sky), 14 and 17 seconds behind respectively, to add a considerable exploit to an already important list of achievements with podiums on the Giro d’Italia and the Vuelta a España.
