Volta a Catalunya: Cimolai wins opening stage

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Davide Cimolai (FDJ) claimed a hard-fought sprint victory on the opening stage of the Volta a Catalunya. The 27-year-old topped Nacer Bouhanni (Cofidis) in the bunch sprint, with Kristian Sbaragli third.

It's the second consecutive year that Cimolai has claimed a stage win in the race, but where as last year's victory came on stage 6, this year he earned the race's first leader's jersey.

"I didn't know how I would be - two days ago I did Milan-San Remo, a very long race," a pleased Cimolai said after the finish. "I like so much the racing in Spain for the weather, for the stages and this is my second win in Volta Catalunya and I’m very happy."

Now leading the overall by four seconds over Bouhanni, Cimolai's lead is quite tenuous with the 41.3km team time trial coming on Tuesday.

"The object was to win one stage and now I work for the team," he said. "Tomorrow there is a harder time trial, and I see day by day."

How it unfolded

On a day with six major climbs, one might have expected the back-to-back category 1 ascents of Alt El Muntanya and Coll Formic to play bigger roles, but there were no major attacks from the climbers as teams chose to save their firepower for the lengthy stage 2 team time trial.

Instead, the peloton simply clicked off a steady tempo to reel in the early escapees - Magno Prado Nazaret and Murilo Affonso (Brasil), Antonio Nibali (Bahrain-Merida) and Pierre Rolland (Cannondale-Drapac).

The quartet had 40 seconds as they crested the first climb, and before the descent three riders jumped across - Jetse Bol (Manzana Postobon), Axel Domont (AG2R La Mondiale) and Brendan Canty joining his teammate Rolland at the head of the race

Marco Minnaard (Wanty-Groupe Gobert) also tried to get across, but couldn't quite make it.

Domont and Bol left the rest behind on the 28km descent, and with 41km to go the pair had built up a lead of more than a minute on the chasing peloton.

But that advantage was chipped away easily by the bunch, who reached the base of the final climb, the Alt de Collsacreu with 25km to go, with the pair of escapees in their sight.

The Collsacreu did very little to disrupt the efforts of the sprinters' teams, with Lotto Soudal, Cofidis, and Katusha controlling the pace.

The peloton rode together at a high pace until Cyril Gautier (AG2R La Mondiale) had a go with just over 5km to go, but it was a long way to go alone, and he was swept up on an incline with 3km to go.

Peter Kennaugh attacked a descent soon after, tucking low on his top tube, but the voracious pace of the sprint teams put an end to his antics just inside the flamme rouge.

Cofidis led into the sprint, setting up Nacer Bouhanni perfectly, but he was put in front just a touch too soon, and Cimolai caught and narrowly bested the fading Frenchman.

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