Paul Magnier gave Soudal-QuickStep their first victory of 2026, winning stage 1 at Volta ao Algarve as he rocketed past Jordi Meeus (Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe) and Pavel Bittner (Picnic-PostNL).
Magnier had to come from behind as he chose the wheel of Jasper Philipsen (Alpecin-Premier Tech), after the Belgian’s team worked most of the day for him, but into the headwind, Magnier jumped at just the right time, leaving Philipsen to settle for fourth.
"It's my first victory - I was second in my first race, so I'm really happy to finally take it after my second place in [the Clàssica Comunitat Valenciana]," Magnier said.
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"Second place is already really good, but today was really different for me. I had really a really strong team around me, a full train with new riders coming in the team. So that's super special for me. I'm super happy about the work we did again today. We came with ambitions, and I can be really happy with the team victory today."
Magnier leads the overall by four seconds over Meeus and breakaway rider Noah Campos (Tavira/Credito Agricola), who profited from the bonus seconds available at the three 'golden kilometre' sprints and is third in the GC standings.
Behind Bittner, overall favourite Juan Ayuso (Lidl-Trek) is fifth at seven seconds.
Stage 1 winner Paul Magnier (Soudal-QuickStep) celebrates at finish line (Image credit: Getty Images)
How it unfolded
The Volta ao Algarve got underway with a 185.6km stage from Vila Real de Santo António on the southern coast to Tavira, not very far away. The route took the peloton to the north for a long loop with two climbs before the flat finish.
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Noah Campos (Tavira/Credito Agricola), Enzo Leijnse (Anicolor/Campicarn), João Silva (Feira dos Sofas-Boavista), Tomas Contte (Aviludo-Louletano-Loule), Bruno Silva (Tavfer-Ovos Matinados-Mortagua), Diogo Narciso (Credibom/LA Aluminios/Marcos Car), José Miguel Moreira and André Ribeiro (GI Group Holding-Simoldes-UDO), and Viacheslav Ivanov (Feirense-Beecler) escaped in the first 10km to make up the day's breakaway.
The breakaway on stage 1 (Image credit: Getty Images)
Narciso dropped on an uncategorized climb after Marcador with 82km to go, bringing the lead group down to eight, but he clawed his way back.
What had been a two-minute gap began to shrink to just over one until 58km to go, when João Silva crashed out of the breakaway when he ran into a kerb on the exit of a roundabout.
That incident slowed the progress of the escape and slashed their advantage to just 30 seconds, but rather than close them down, Alpecin-Premier Tech kept a steady pace on the second climb of the day at Faz Fato to let the breakaway dangle.
With the chase sitting up, Bruno Silva jumped clear of his companions in the lead group.
Hugo Nunes took the opportunity to jump across to the breakaway which was in the process of shattering as Leijnse, Contte and Ivanov jumped clear and held 25-second gap over the chasers and 1:15 on the peloton.
Contte claimed the maximum points to take the lead in that classification as Nunes and Narciso caught Moreira and Ribeiro.
Ribeiro dropped off the pace over the summit, leaving the trio to try to close down a 20-second gap with 40km to go.
While the trio made solid progress and the two escape groups became one with 35km to go, however, Alpecin-Premier Tech were also accelerating and beginning to nullify their lead.
With 32km to go, the breakaway's fortunes shifted for the worse as the gap dropped to 32 seconds, making a bunch sprint a near inevitability.
Breakaway trio (L to R): Tomas Contte of Team Aviludo - Louletano - Loulé, Viacheslav Ivanov of Feirense-Beeceler and Enzo Leijnse of Anicolor Campicarn (Image credit: Getty Images)
Nunes wasn't prepared to let that happen and attacked solo - but the peloton caught them all anyhow with 25km to go, in the midst of the 'golden kilometre' where there were three sprints, each with a three-second time bonus for the first rider, two for second and one for third.
Nunes claimed the first two bonifications while Jan Tratnik (Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe) won the third, while Juan Ayuso (Lidl-Trek) picked up three seconds for second on sprint 2 and third on sprint 3.
Soudal-QuickStep and Lidl-Trek led the race into the final 4km as the fight for sprint train positioning ramped up, with Picnic-PostNL, Pinarello-Q36.5 and Tudor Pro Cycling taking over with 2km to go.
The washing machine was on full agitation, with NSN, Lotto-Intermarché and even Ineos Grenadiers taking turns in the wind.
When it came to a one-lane squeeze with 1.2km to go, it was UAE Team Emirates-XRG who led through, but Alpecin-Premier Tech had Philipsen in a perfect position. However, Magnier came from behind and pounced for the win.
Laura Weislo is a Cyclingnews veteran of 20 years. Having joined in 2006, Laura extensively covered the Operacion Puerto doping scandal, the years-long conflict between the UCI and the Tour de France organisers ASO over the creation of the WorldTour, and the downfall of Lance Armstrong and his lifetime ban for doping. As Managing Editor, Laura coordinates coverage for North American events and global news.
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