Volta a Catalunya: Valverde wins on Tortosa

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Alejandro Valverde (Movistar) took his second win of the 2017 Volta a Catalunya Friday, riding away from Chris Froome (Team Sky) and Alberto Contador (Trek-Segafredo) on the upper slopes of Lo Port and taking the overall lead from Tejay van Garderen, who lost contact with the leaders in the final kilometres.

Valverde now leads Froome by 21 seconds and Contador by 47, while his teammate Marc Soler is fourth, one minute down. Van Garderen slipped to sixth, 1:18 back with Adam Yates (Orica-Scott) in fifth.

Valverde donned the race leader's jersey once again after teammate Jose Rojas and then Valverde himself were stripped of the lead when the race jury penalized Movistar for infractions during the stage 2 team time trial.

"It's a victory and a leader's jersey really special because of everything that happened during the last few days," Valverde said. "Things like those, outside the racing itself, are not ones that we like. In the end, we managed to get people excited and happy about our racing, and that's what counts."

Valverde left little doubt about who was the strongest rider in the race on Friday, making the most of his team's work on the early slopes of Lo Port Tortosa by sailing away from the rest of the contenders on the steepest pitches and then powering on for the win.

Froome picked up the Team Sky baton once Geraint Thomas was dropped, but the three-time Tour de France winner could only watch as Valverde danced away. Contador was able to stay on terms briefly with Valverde, but he was soon jettisoned as well and was eventually swept up and passed by Froome.

How it unfolded

Friday's 182km stage and its summit finish on Lo Port was heavily anticipated by the general classification contenders as their chance to end up on the top of the standings. The peloton tackled the second category climb of Coll de Fatxes at nearly 70km, then traversed a small lump on the profile before a mostly flat run to the final climb of the day.

A barrage of attacks animated the early going, pushing the pace for the first hour of racing over 50km/h, but the day's breakaway wasn't able to slip away until the peloton hit the Coll de Fatxes, where a group of 15 riders slipped away with 110km still to go.

In the group were Rafa Valls (Lotto Soudal), Cyril Gautier (AG2R La Mondiale), Robert Gesink (LottoNL-Jumbo), Dario Cataldo (Astana), Daniel Navarro (Cofidis), Robert Kisterlovski (Katusha-Alpecin), Damien Howson (Orica-Scott), Laurens de Plus (Quick-Step Floors), Pierre Rolland (Cannondale-Drapac), Tsgabu Grmay (Bahrain-Merida), Antonio Nibali (Bahrain-Merida), Valerio Conti (UAE Team Emirates), Hector Saez (Caja Rural), Aldemar Reyes (Manzana Postobon), Nick van der Lijk (Roompot - Nederlandse Loterij).

Once away, the escapees' gap shot up to 5:20, and with Cataldo the best placed rider in the group, starting the day 3:37 down on van Garderen, the Astana rider was the leader on the road. Rolland took out both intermediate sprints to seize the lead in that classification.

BMC picked up the chase for van Garderen and were joined by Team Sky, which had Thomas and Froome in the top 10, and Trek-Segafredo, which had Contador and Jarlinson Panatano near the top of the overall.

A stiff wind helped the chasers as crosswinds at first started to rip the peloton into several groups, but by the time things settled down the leaders' gap was down to 1:50 with about 50km to go. From there, the gap continued to come down as the peloton rushed headlong toward the town of Tortosa and the climb of Lo Port.

Movistar, possibly still smarting from the race jury's decision to penalise them earlier in the week, went to the front and drove the pace as the peloton made its way through the twists and turns in Tortosa. Stage 4 winner Nacer Bouhanni (Cofidis) made an appearance on the front on the lower slopes of the climb, but the French sprinter was only there for show as the pace started dropping riders out of the bunch.

Team Sky moved to the front as several riders tried their luck with attacks, but the real contenders for the stage win and possible overall lead were still keeping their powder dry with 8km to go.

Trek-Segafredo moved Mollema and Pantano forward to set the pace, but Sky was unhappy with the speed and reclaimed the pace-making duties with Mikel Landa. Movistar sent Ruben Fernadez forward briefly before Pantano set a brutal pace on the front.

Pantano’s pace cracked van Garderen, who lost contact with the lead group. Both Contador and Pantano checked back to see what kind of damage they had inflicted, and Contador must have liked what he saw, because he immediately attacked.

Contador’s move collected a handful of contenders, including Froome and Valverde, who put in an attack of his own. Contador countered, but Froome appeared to struggle to maintain contact.

Marc Soler (Movistar) made the lead group, as did Adam Yates, Froome, Valverde and Contador. With 2km to go, the stage winner and new race leader would come from this five-rider group.

After a brief respite from hostilities, Soler launched an attack that only Froome and Contador could follow. Froome scrapped his way back to the move just as Soler pulled off. Froome passed the Movistar rider and made contact with Valverde and Contador with just 1km to go.

Valverde attacked next, dropping Froome first and then Contador, and collecting the stage prize and leader's jersey for his efforts.

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