Late attack earns Roger Adrià victory in the opening stage at Vuelta Burgos
Ádria attacked inside the final kilometre spoiling the punchy sprinters’ day with his own long range effort inside the closing 500m of the uphill finish.
Roger Adrià won the opening stage of the Vuelta Burgos with a late attack on on the uphill finish in Burgos city on Tuesday. The Red Bull-Bora-hansgrohe rider attacked inside the final 500m of the 204.7km stage between Olmillos de Sasamón and Burgos, holding onto lead the race home.
Jordan Labrosse (Decathlon-AG2R-La Mondiale) crossed the line just behind the Spaniard to take second place, with Afonso Eulálio (Bahrain Victorious) leading a group four seconds back to take third place.
The race acts as a perfect preparation race for the upcoming Vuelta a España, with this year’s edition consisting of three tough punchy days, including Tuesday’s, and two mountain stages.
Day one, took the riders over almost 2,500m of climbing with three classified climbs, the toughest of those, the Puerto de la Mazorra covering 7km at 5.2%, came just past the mid-point, and the final, much easier climb topping out around 16km from the finish.
A breakaway consisting entirely of home based riders formed soon after the start, Javier Ibañez (Caja Rural-Seguros), Urko Berrade (Equipo Kern Pharma), Joan Gamundi and Asier Gonzalez both of the Illes Balears Arabay Continental teams were quickly allowed a lead of 3.20.
They were eventually joined by Dries de Bondt (Decathlon-AG2R La Mondiale) and Carlos García Pierna (Burgos Bupelley BH) and the race settled.
Ahead of the Puerto de la Mazorra, García Pierna but was caught by De Bondt, the pair entering the final 60km with their lead down to 2:41. With 40km to go the two leaders’ advantage was well under two minutes and had halved 10km later. The pair were eventually caught with 10km to go before Samuel Fernandez (Caja Rural-Seguros RGA) made a move 7km out. He was then caught immediately before Ádria began his own long range sprint.
The race was notable for a late crash, with Isaac del Toro (UAE Team Emirates-XRG) and Giulio Ciccone (Lidl-Trek). It seemed to have been caused when Del Toro's pedal hit the ground as he rounded a right hand bend, his spinning bike taking down the Italian, who was on his wheel.
