Ruta del Sol: Serrano wins stage 1

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Gonzalo Serrano (Movistar) surged from the peloton in the uphill sprint at Zaharra del la Sierra to win stage 1 of Vuelta a Andalucia Ruta Ciclista del Sol. Finishing with the same time to round out the podium were Orluis Alberto Aular (Caja Rural-Seguros RGA), who was second, and Daryl Impey (Israel Start-up Nation). Leading the bunch sprint for fourth was Briton Ethan Hayter (Ineos Grenadiers).

Three riders built a nine-minute advantage early in the 152.1km stage, which rolled across three categorised climbs after departing the start from Caja de Mijas - Antonio Jesús Soto (Euskaltel-Euskadi), Rui Oliveira (UAE Team Emirates) and Thomas Sprengers (Team Sport Vlaanderen-Baloise). After the third and final categorised climb, Oliveira slid out on a corner and went down. He would remount and rejoin the peloton, leaving Soto and Sprengers to fight at the front.

The duo would be caught with less than 15km to go, and leaving Movistar to set up the final sprint for Serrano, who would add a stage win for a second year in a row at Ruta del Sol. 

"The Vuelta a Andalucía had also used these roads last years. We knew it, we knew that the little town with 8-9km to go was the place to start pushing. The race was always a little bit up from there, and my teammates put on a really good pace to try and take the sprinters off the group, which we achieved," said Serrano in a team statement.

"I knew that the road narrowed with 2km to go, and there, [José Joaquín] Rojas further picked up the rhythm, then Héctor [Héctor] was incredible – he left me at the 300, 400m to go mark, which was more or less where we planned to launch it.

"I don’t know if it’s just coincidence, the heat here… but in the end, it’s two stages in consecutive years. It makes me so proud to be part of the Movistar Team," added Serrano.

Although scraped by the fall on stage 1, Oliveira also received the polka-dot jersey as the leader of the mountains classification. Scooping up the sprint sprint points to earn the blue sprint classification jersey was Sprengers.