Valenciana: Pogacar secures overall victory

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Fabio Jakobsen (Deceuninck-Quickstep) claimed the final sprint victory in the Volta a la Comunitat Valenciana, topping Dylan Groenwegen (Jumbo-Visma) and John Degenkolb (Lotto Soudal), with the short and fast stage posed no threat to the lead of Tadej Pogacar (UAE Team Emirates), who held on to claim the overall victory ahead of Jack Haig (Mitchelton-Scott) and Tao Geoghegan Hart (Team Ineos).

The overall classification, decided in Saturday's stage to Sierra de Bernia, was decided by a matter of only six seconds, with Haig and Geoghegan Hart tied on time behind the Slovenian.

After his breakout podium finish in last year's Vuelta a España, Pogacar had ample expectations heaped on his shoulders but the 21-year-old showed maturity beyond his years in handling the pressure in such a tight race.

"This win means a lot to me, especially after all the hard work we did in the winter to prepare. To start my first race and win is incredible," Pogacar said. "My form is really good but not as good as when I was in the Vuelta a Espana."

With the confirmation in Spain, Pogacar said he will now work toward the Tour de France with a busy race schedule.

"I'll prepare at an altitude training camp and before my race before the Tour will be the Dauphine. I've got the UAE Tour towards the end of the month, then I do Paris-Nice, Basque Country and the Ardennes classics."

For Jakobsen, the victory was a confirmation that his new designated lead-out man Davide Ballerini was a winning pairing. In a highly technical final 500 metres, Ballerini dropped Jakobsen off out of the last turn, giving no time for Groenewegen and Degenkolb to get around him. 

It was Deceuninck-QuickStep's seventh win of 2020, indicating the Belgian team has created yet another successful sprint unit.

"I'll do a lot of races with Davide Ballerini; he will be my lead out guy," Jakobsen said. "We wanted to start the season good, that's why we came here to try to win a stage. I'm very happy we succeeded.

"I'm happy to be in this team because they put me in the perfect position to win the sprint and I'm happy I won, for them and for me."

How it unfolded

With the mountains behind them, the peloton set out for the final stage of the Volta a la Comunitat Valenciana for a fast and fraught 97.7km stage from Paterna to Valencia - one virtually guaranteed to be for the sprinters. 

Unaffected by the intense storms raging in Northern Europe, the sun shone over the riders as they headed out into the light breeze for a loop around the local orange groves.

Hugo Houle (Astana), Sergio Samitier (Movistar), Francesco Romano (Bardiani CSF-Faizane) and Jon Agirre (Equipo Kern Pharma) soon formed the break of the day but
represented no threat to race leader Tadej Pogacar (UAE Team Emirates).

The quartet never got much of a gap as Deceuninck-Quickstep and Jumbo-Visma led the peloton behind for Jakobsen and Groenewegen, respectively; with 17km to go the break maintained lead by over half a minute, as Samitier was the first to surge to keep the momentum going.

The clock continued to tick down for the breakaway as the pace heated up in the peloton and with nine kilometres to go, the Jumbo-Visma and Deceuninck-QuickStep train mowed them down.

Mitchelton-Scott amassed on the front before Lotto Soudal took over for Degenkolb - the two teams shoulder to shoulder in the numerous roundabouts along the tree-lined boulevard.

Pogacar, lacking teammates at the pointy end of the bunch, took the lead through a long tunnel with four kilometres to go before fading back when the race reemerged back into the sunshine.

Deceuninck-Quickstep got a brief challenge from Team Ineos with two kilometres to go but as is their style, the Belgian team only allowed the interlopers a brief sniff at the front.

With one tricky turn before the final straight, Israel Start-Up Nation managed to push to the fore for Davide Cimolai, but the Italian was washed away in the fight for position.

Ballerini perfectly delivered Jakobsen to the front out of the final turn and the Dutch champion had enough power to hold off Groenewegen to take his first victory of 2020.

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