Marianne Vos rounds off Paula Blasi’s Volta a Catalunya with a victory in Barcelona
June 21 st 2026 - 19:02 [GMT + 2]
Paula Blasi (UAE Team ADQ) and Marianne Vos (Team Visma-Lease a Bike), the two major highlights at the start of the 3rd edition of the women’s Volta Ciclista a Catalunya took centre stage on the final day. Whilst the Catalan rider was crowned overall champion in a historic result, becoming the first home-grown cyclist to win the Volta twelve years after Joaquim Rodríguez’s victory in the men’s race in 2014, the Dutch legend claimed victory in the final stage on Avenue Maria Cristina in Barcelona, capping off a magnificent team effort in the sprint. Vos and her team-mate Nienke Veenhoven repeated, in reverse order, the one-two finish with which they had started the race in Santa Susanna, whilst Blasi took the top step of a young final podium alongside France’s Célia Gery (FDJ United-Suez) and Canada’s Sidney Swierenga (Liv-AlUla-Jayco).
The third and final stage of the Volta a Catalunya covered a distance of 111.4 kilometers between the town of Mataró – which this year featured twice in the Volta, in both the men’s and women’s races, as part of the ‘l’Esport Ciclista Mataró’ celebrations – and the city of Barcelona, with the Coll de Parpers (3rd category) – which marked the start of the stage at the 8-kilometre mark – as the only mountain climb to earn points.
The climb through Parpers was also key to forming the day’s breakaway. A group comprising Norway’s Oda Gissinger (Hitec Products-Fluid Control), Ecuador’s Natalie Revelo (WCC Team) and Germany’s Isabella Bertold (EC Mataró) reached the summit of the climb at the front of the race, a move that was later joined by junior world champion Paula Ostiz (Movistar Team), forming a breakaway group of four riders who took control of teams such as Team Visma-Lease a Bike and FDJ United-Suez, all of whom had their sights set on stage victory on Avda Maria Cristina in Barcelona.
Two young cyclists making their elite debut this season at the age of 19 – Oda Gissinger and Paula Ostiz, the most combative rider of the day – were the riders who put up the strongest resistance at the front of the race, before being caught 3.5 kilometres from the finish. The speed of the sprint would ultimately decide the winner of the final stage in Barcelona, where victory went to three-time world champion Marianne Vos (Team Visma-Lease a Bike) following a flawless lead-out by her team, which secured another one-two finish with second place going to the young Nienke Veenhoven, who also won the overall classification following her victory in the opening stage.
The rest of the classification prizes went to the star of the week: the Catalan Paula Blasi (UAE Team ADQ), who secured her overall victory and took the top step of a very young podium, accompanied by the French rider Célia Gery (FDJ United-Suez, aged 20), the reigning U23 world champion and this year’s winner of the Flecha Brabanzona and a stage of the Giro d’Italia, and the Canadian Sidney Swierenga (Liv-AlUla-Jayco, aged 19), the race’s standout newcomer in her first year on the professional circuit after moving up from the junior ranks.
A major milestone for Catalan cycling, which had not seen a home-grown rider claim victory in the Volta a Catalunya since the last of Joaquim “Purito” Rodríguez’s two wins in the men’s race, in 2014, and it has been twelve years since Paula Blasi triumphed, with Mireia Benito (AG Insurance-Soudal) finishing in 5th place and Laura Gómez (Massi Baix Ter) securing a creditable place in the top 15.