Volta ao Algarve: Pogacar wins stage 2

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Tadej Pogacar (UAE Team Emirates) won stage 2 at the Volta ao Algarve after attacking a select group of climbers with 200 metres to the mountaintop summit finish in Foia. The young Slovenian out-kicked a group of five to take the win ahead of Wout Poels (Team Sky), Enric Mas (Deceuninck-QuickStep) and Sam Oomen (Sunweb). Amaro Antunes (CCC) made the first searing attack near the top of the final climb but was caught by the chase group and hung on for fifth.

"I feel like I'm dreaming," Pogacar said in a post-race flash interview. "It's my first victory in the WorldTour. I'm really happy."

Pogacar took over the leader's jersey from stage 1 winner Fabio Jakobsen (Deceuninck-QuickStep). He will wear the yellow jersey into the stage 3 time trial, leading the race by a mere one second over Poels and three seconds to Mas.

"Now that I have the yellow jersey, I will do everything, and my team, to keep the jersey until the end," Pogacar said. "Tomorrow is the time trial. I will try to put everything on the road. We'll see how it goes."

The opening stage was marred by a crash with seven kilometres to go that saw many overall contenders lose valuable time in the GC; however, Pogacar was not affected by the accident and finished in the front group, along with Poels, Mas and Oomen.

The final ascent to Foia was always going to be the toughest part of the stage, at 8km with a 6 per cent average gradient. Team Sky led into the climb with a pace only about 35 riders could immediately follow.

With 6km to go, Tao Geoghegan Hart moved to the front with David de la Cruz and Poels on his wheel, upping the speeds to deter potential attacks from their rivals; Pogacar, Mas, Antunes and Oomen. Also in the mix were Simon Spilak (Katusha-Alpecin), Simone Pettilli (UAE Team Emirates), Jose Herrada (Cofidis) and Joao Rodrigues (W52-FC Porto), while Fabio Aru (UAE Team Emirates) and other strong climbers lost contact.

Of the lead group, Antunes made the first attack with less than two kilometres to the top and opened up a sizeable lead. Oomen tried desperately to shut down the gap with Mas, Poels and Pogacar on this wheel. When Oomen appeared to struggle to make contact, Poels jumped around him and caught and passed Antunes. The Sky rider continued sprinting to try and get to the finish line first but Pogacar proved strongest of the five-man group, launching his winning move inside 200 metres to the line.

How it unfolded

The second stage of the Volta ao Algarve catered to the climbers with 187km from Almodovar to the summit finish in Foia. Many of the overall contenders lost some time during the opening stage due to a large crash in the peloton that caused splits in the field and so stage 2 offered them a chance to make some of that time back.

An early move cleared the field inside the first 10km of the stage that included Will Barta (CCC Team), Olivier le Gac (Groupama-FDJ), Brian van Goethem (Lotto-Soudal), Rafael Reis (W52-FC Porto), Bruno Silva (Efapel) and Jesús Nanclares (Miranda-Mortágua).

Silva picked up the first set of intermediate sprint points in Almodovar, while Reis took full points on the first ascent over Cavalos. The six men pushed their lead out to just over two minutes as they raced down into the valley where there was a 60km stretch before reaching the second ascent to Pomba.

Deceuninck-QuickStep controlled efforts at the front of the field to protect their stage 1 winner and race leader Fabio Jakobsen and set up their climber Mas. Lotto Soudal also had a presence near the front, and their combined efforts reeled in the breakaway at the base of the Pomba.

The Pomba, a 3.9km climb with an average gradient of 8 per cent but a maximum of 16 per cent, is where the race lit up with two riders launched out of the field; Dmitrii Strakhov (Katusha-Alpecin) and Riccardo Zoidl (CCC), who was quickly followed by his teammate Amaro Antunes. Antunes finished fifth overall in the race two years ago, but he was held up in the stage 1 crash and lost over a minute.

Zoidl working for Antunes led the pace up the climb with the latter taking the mountain points and the category jersey over the top, while Strakhov was nowhere in sight.

The CCC teammates pushed their gap out to 30 seconds over a chase group that included Raul Alarcón, and João Rodrigues (W52-FC Porto), João Benta (Radio Popular-Boavista) and the Portuguese champion Domingos Gonçalves (Caja Rural-Seguros RGA), but more importantly, it was two minutes to the main field.

Team Sky, working for De la Cruz and Poels, moved five riders to the front of the field to help Deceuninck-QuickStep's Yves Lampaert and Tim Declercq, working for Mas, set a faster pace as the race approached the final climb to Foia. Together they pulled back in the chase group of four and shut down Zoidl and Antunes gap with 15km to go.

Team Sky led the field into the base of the climb with a pace that shed many of their potential rivals, and although they were the strongest as a unit, it wasn't enough to hold off the 20-year-old Pogacar in his quest to seal his first victory on a WorldTour team.

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