Paterski claims Volta a Catalunya stage win

A long-distance break of three opportunist riders caused a major upset in the Volta Ciclista a Catalunya on Monday's opening stage, with Maciej Paterski (CCC) seizing the stage win and lead, and now ideally poised to do battle for the overall with fellow breakaways Bart de Clerq (Lotto-Soudal) and Pierre Rolland (Team Europcar).

"I have to take advantage of those days, when I feel strong and today I did exactly that," Paterski said of the race. "One of my biggest dreams has come true – to win a UCI World Tour race. I am very happy about that.

"I felt very well throughout the entire day, except the last 10 kilometers when the cramps began to strike. I felt dehydrated, but it was not only me, because it turned out that other escapees also had to deal with the same problem. In the end I was trying to not push on the pedals too hard and spin as easy as possible. It helped. During the finale I had to forget about the pain and concentrate on the sprint."

The trio have a gap of 2:40 seconds on the main peloton, led home by de Clerq's teammate Tosh Van De Sande and containing all the top favourites. Such an advantage may not prove completely decisive for the remainder of the race, but eliminating all three riders from the running - a top climber like former Alpe d'Huez winner Rolland is strongly placed - could be very difficult indeed.

Should any of the trio survive stage 4's mountain-top finish at La Molina with anything like the advantage they have now, barring ambushes the battle for the overall will be all over bar the shouting. After all, last year's Volta Ciclista a Catalunya, on an extremely similar course - no individual time trial and bland, unchallenging terrain on several stages - was won by just four seconds difference between first-placed Joaquim Rodriguez (Katusha) and runner-up Alberto Contador (Tinkoff-Saxo).

"Now we own the leader jersey so we will try to maintain it as long as possible," Paterski said. "We have few other options, because I’m also the leader of mountains and points classification, but we will set the strategy with our sporting directors tomorrow and we will take one day at a time."

How it unfolded

On the 185.2 kilometre opening stage of the 2015 Volta, running through rugged terrain inland of the coastal start/finish town of Callela and including the first category Col de Formic, the trio broke away in the second hour of racing. In what seemed no time at all they had built up an impressively large lead of 14 minutes. Just past the stage's mid-way point at km 95, this had shrunk to 12:45, but nonetheless, their margin represented an advantage of considerable proportions.

Even the Formic's steepest nine percent slopes did little to dent the trio's margin, which dropped to a hefty nine minutes by the time they reached its summit. Sky and Tinkoff-Saxo began to chase a lot harder, but with seven minutes margin at 18 kilometres to go, shortly after the last classified climb of the day, it was clear one of the leading three was going to be raising his arms in victory in Calella.

On the hunt for his first win since he very narrowly fended off the peloton at the summit of the Montevergine in stage seven of the 2011 Giro d'Italia, De Clerq opened up the three-way sprint on the undulating finishing straight in Callela. But it was 2014 Tour of Norway champion Paterski, seemingly none too exhausted from finishing 22nd in Sunday's Milano-Sanremo and then claiming the top place on all three of stage one's classified climbs in the Volta, who managed to clinch the win. The 30-year-old Paterski first shot past the Belgian and then fended off a late surge by Rolland for what is arguably the biggest win of his six year career.

Whilst for his Pro-Continental CCC team, Paterski's win in a WorldTour race like the Volta may well prove be one of the highpoints of their 2015 season, for Paterski, the overall should be relatively easy to defend for at least one more day. Stage two's 191.8 kilometre run from Mataro de Olot is largely flat and, assuming the peloton regroups following a short, steep unclassified ‘ramp' of 1.4 kilometres some 11 kilometres from the line, will almost certainly end in a bunch sprint.

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