Volta ao Algarve: Jakobsen wins stage 1

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Fabio Jakobsen paid off his QuickStep-AlphaVinyl teammates for their perfect lead-out, sprinting to victory and the first leader's jersey of the 2022 Volta ao Algarve on the opening stage to Lagos.

Jakobsen got little challenge after his team delivered him to the front in the fast, tailwind finish and he handily held off Jordi Meeus (Bora-Hansgrohe), with Bryan Coquard (Cofidis) pipping Alexander Kristoff (Intermarché-Wanty-Gobert Matériaux) for third. Meeus was later relegated to 32nd for clashing with Kristoff along the barriers.

"It's perfect. I think we controlled the race all day and I have to thank my teammates," Jakobsen said. "I cannot win the sprint without them. This is their victory, and I'm just happy that I again got the victory in Lagos.

"I know this finish quite well, obviously, we did a training camp here and I won here twice before."

A pair of big crashes split the peloton, the first with 30km to go that took out UAE Team Emirates sprinter Sebastian Molano, and another as the pace ramped up for the lead out with 11km to go. A technical run-in further reduced Jakobsen's competition, and only about two dozen riders were in contention in the final kilometre.

One of them was 2019 Volta ao Algarve winner and pre-race favourite Remco Evenepoel (QuickStep-AlphaVinyl), who finished not far behind his stage-winning teammate in eighth after working to deliver Jakobsen to the front.

"The last climb before entering Lagos, we had a good position, and also a big thanks to Remco, he's here for the GC but he does his job perfect in the lead out. It was an amazing day."

It was Jakobsen's third victory of the season after his pair of stages in the Volta Comunitat Valenciana.

"The legs are there, we saw that two weeks ago in Valencia."

Jakobsen's spell in the leader's jersey will likely be quite short, with stage 2 climbing to the Alto do Foia for the decisive summit finish of the race.

How it unfolded

Pleasant temperatures and sunny skies greeted the peloton for their 199km opening stage from Portimão to Lagos, not far away from each other on the southern coast of Portugal. The opening stage took riders into the hills with two classified climbs before an undulating circuit toward the Atlantic coast and looping back to the flat finish.

Three riders did not take the start - Wessel Krul (Human Powered Health), Jelle Wallays (Cofidis) and Francisco Campos (Efapel), leaving 164 riders in the bunch that got off to a rapid start with the traditional flurry of early attacks.

It wasn't until the 17km mark that a group of four Continental riders were solidly clear, with Asier Etxeberria (Euskaltel-Euskadi), Fábio Oliveira (ABTF-Feirense), Hugo Nunes (Rádio Popular-Paredes-Boavista) and João Matias (Tavfer-Mortágua-Ovos Matinados) opening a lead of over three minutes before the first ascent, the Aldeia dos Matos, a category 4 climb.

Nunes beat Matias and Etxeberria to the top but the Tavfer rider got the better of Oliveira in the intermediate sprint five kilometres later.

Alpecin-Fenix, QuickStep-AlphaVinyl and Intermarché-Wanty-Gobert Matériaux took responsibility for controlling the leader's advantage and brought it down to 90 seconds in the second hour and kept the gap relatively stable throughout the next 100km.

Matias leapt away to take the maximum points a the top of the third category Nave ascent around the mid-point of the stage, cementing the first mountains classification jersey. Nunes went for the next intermediate sprint at kilometre 128.3 and took the points over Oliveira. Both Nunes and Oliveria had four points but with a bunch sprint expected, they would not be contesting the points classification.

The same teams plus Groupama-FDJ brought the quartet's advantage down steadily in the last 55km, and had it at 24 seconds when a massive crash midway through the peloton split the chasing bunch. UAE Team Emirates' sprinter Sebastian Molano stayed on the ground the longest, with Ricardo Mestre (W52/Porto) also attended on the roadside by medics. The rest of the fallers got up to chase as the gap to the leaders fell into the single digits.

Nunes took the third intermediate sprint just ahead of the first half of the oncoming peloton, led in a single file line by Intermarché. QuickStep-AlphaVinyl, Ineos Grenadiers, Arkéa Samsic, and Groupama-FDJ in a rotation to keep the second bunch from rejoining.

With 30km to go, Warren Barguil (Arkéa-Samsic) put in a dig that was immediately shut down by QuickStep-AlphaVinyl, keeping the speed high in a crosswind not quite strong enough to cause further splits.

Inside the final 20km, the pace slowed in the headwind, and with a few sharp turns it allowed some of the chasers to rejoin the leading group. Bora-Hansgrohe and Jumbo-Visma came forward to help set the pace on narrow country roads that allowed for little room to come forward to attack.

The lead peloton headed into Lagos with Alpecin-Fenix and QuickStep-AlphaVinyl setting a blistering pace when another crash toward the back of the bunch at a narrowing on a small bridge took out Barguil, Lars van den Burg (Groupama-FDJ) with a rider from Euskaltel Euskadi having to climb out of the verge.

With 10km to the finish, Intermarché amassed at the front for Kristoff along with Alpecin-Fenix's Meurisse for Tim Merlier, and QuickStep for Jakobsen as the group had shrunk to at most 35 riders. Ineos Grenadiers held back as Ethan Hayter had just tacked on at the back.

It was a blazing fast lead out in the slightly downhill final 2km, with QuickStep opening a gap to Bora-Hansgrohe. An opportunistic attack came from a Trek Segafredo rider but only served to help Jakobsen's lead out. The Dutch rider pounced off the wheel and sped to his fourth win of 2022.