Tadej Pogacar (UAE Team Emirates) crushed his competition under the pouring rain on the mountaintop finish at Vallter 2000, winning stage 2 and taking the overall lead at the Volta Ciclista a Catalunya.
Pogacar attacked with 6.5km to go on the final ascent, initially opening a gap of 15 seconds and then pushing his lead out to 1:23 as he crossed the line with the victory ahead of runner-up Mikel Landa (Soudal-QuickStep) and third-placed Aleksandr Vlasov (Bora-Hansgrohe).
Pogačar now leads the overall classification by 1:35 over Landa and an additional three seconds over Vlasov, heading into the third stage at the Volta a Catalunya, a 176.7km race from Sant Joan de les Abadesses to Port Ainé on Wednesday.
"We started with nice weather, like summer, and then we saw these clouds, and we were thinking that maybe we could survive until the final climb without rain, but unfortunately, it started to rain on the second-to-last climb. The conditions were tough; it was a hard climb, and you could feel the altitude, but I'm happy to win," Pogačar said.
How it unfolded
The second stage of the Volta a Catalunya took the peloton on 186.5km from Mataró to the summit of Vallter 2000.
The peloton was routed through flat valley roads with two intermediate sprints before reaching the category 1 ascent Coll de Coubet, which is 9.6km and has an average gradient of 5.4%, a prelude to the finale at Vallter 2000.
An early breakaway of six formed that included Jimmy Janssens (Alpecin-Deceuninck), Kevin Colleoni (Intermarché-Wanty), Samuel Fernández (Caja Rural-Seguros RGA), Alex Jaime (Kern Pharma), Jambaljamts Sainbayar (Burgos-BH), and Xabier Isasa (Euskaltel-Euskadi)
The gap extended to 5:30 but dropped to 4:30 as the peloton hit the halfway point and got closer to the final two ascents.
Tadej Pogačar (UAE Team Emirates) briefly attacked at 165km to go and then again following the Coll de Coubet opening a slim lead over the main field, but was eventually reeled back in.
Up ahead, the breakaway splintered over the more mountainous terrain during the second half of the stage, with Fernández briefly going solo before Janssens bridged across. The four remaining breakaway companions were distanced by roughly 40 seconds.
As the rain poured down, Janssens put in another surge, distanced Fernández with 20km to go, and maintained a 50-second lead heading into the final climb.
Teams with GC hopefuls Ineos-Grenadiers, Bahrain Victorious, UAE Team Emirates, Visma-Lease a Bike and EF Education-EasyPost were all at the front of the peloton as the race hit the base of Vallter 2000.
As riders began to shed their rain jackets on the ascent with 10km to go, a crash in the field took down several riders, but it appeared that everyone was back up and racing within moments of the fall.
Pogačar made his move with 6.5km to go, catching and passing a tiring Janssens while also splitting apart the field behind him.
A chase group formed that included João Almeida (UAE Team Emirates), Cian Uijtdebroeks (Visma-Lease a Bike), Mikel Landa (Soudal-QuickStep), Egan Bernal (Ineos-Grenadiers), Lenny Martinez (Groupama FDJ), Aleksandr Vlasov (Bora-Hansgrohe), Chris Harper (Jayco AlUla) and Harold Tejada (Astana Qazaqstan).
Pogačar all but flew up the ascent, building his lead to 35 seconds along the upper slopes of the ascent ahead of a dwindling chase group as Uijtdebroeks and Tejada fell off the pace.
Celebrating over the line as the stage winner and new overall classification leader, Pogačar had enough time, 1:23 minutes, to look back and watch the race for the remaining podium spots between Landa, who crossed the line in second, and Vlasov, who finished in third.
Results
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