Vuelta a Burgos: Planckaert wins stage 1

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Edward Planckaert (Alpecin-Fenix) won stage one of the Vuelta a Burgos, pipping Gonzalo Serrano (Movistar) at the line.

On an uphill sprint finish in Burgos, an acceleration by Romain Bardet (Team DSM) saw him and four riders go clear from the rest in the final kilometre, with Planckaert and Serrano emerging as the strongest of these to sprint for victory. 

Planckaert did well to stay upright, as he was squeezed between Serrano and the barrier in the final meters, but impressively managed to both keep his balance and retain enough speed to win the sprint. 

Earlier in the stage, Ineos Grenadiers’ two main GC hopes, Egan Bernal and Adam Yates, had gone down in a crash, causing them to lose time.

They were held up along with two other teammates after a crash 20km from the finish, and, having not been able to remount their saddles for some time, were not able to rejoin the peloton. 

That was a terrible outcome for Ineos Grenadiers, on a stage that at one point promised so much. Earlier, Bernal had been part of a large group also featuring GC favourite Mikel Landa (Bahrain Victorious) that went clear from the peloton earlier in the stage when crosswinds caused echelons. 

Even when that group was brought back at 35km, following an exciting chase, Ineos still had Pavel Sivakov out front as part of another 10-man breakaway group, that had gone further up the road in the crosswinds. 

But he and the remaining escapees too were caught in the final kilometres, meaning the stage was decided by the sprint finish won by Planckaert.

Asked when he believed he could win the stage, Planckaert replied, “I had confidence in the last kilometre.

“There was a big gap between the two pelotons [after the split]. I knew that they were coming back, I was just saving some energy for the last lap. And I won.”

Keeping the leaders’ purple jersey for long will be a tall order for Planckaert, given the mountainous stages to come. 

“I’ll take it stage by stage, day by day. But the first stage uphill [stage three’s to Picon Blanco] will be the last.”

Aside from Bernal and Adam Yates, most of the GC favourites are now 13 seconds down on Planckaert. But Bardet and Landa are a little closer at four and nine seconds, respectively, having gained a little time on the uphill sprint to the finish. 

How it unfolded

Stage 1 started out straightforwardly enough, with a break going clear at the start of the 161-kilometre day. As usual it was made up of riders from the smaller teams, with Mario Aparicio (Burgos-BH), Florian Maitre (TotalEnergies), Sergio Roman Martin (Caja Rural-Seguros RGA), Joan Bou (Euskaltel-Euskadi), and a Eolo-Kometa pair of Sergio Garcia and Marton Dina.

But with about 80km still to ride, the race burst into life, with wind causing the race to split into several groups. 

Nine riders went clear from the rest of the peloton: the Ineos Grenadiers duo of Pavel Sivakov and Jhonatan Narvaez, Einer Augusto Rubio (Movistar), Sep Vanmarcke (Israel Start-Up Nation), Matteo Trentin (UAE Team Emirates), Alexeys Brunel (Groupama-FDJ), Mads Würtz Schmidt (Israel Start-Up Nation), Daniel Oss (Bora-Hansgrohe) and Tobias Bayer (Alpecin-Fenix). 

They caught and passed the break (apart from Garcia, who managed to hang on), forming a new 10-man lead group at the front of the race.

Behind, another larger group was ahead of the main peloton, featuring top GC favourites Bernal and Landa. Although Ineos had two riders in the leading group, the chance for their leader Bernal to gain time over his rivals prompted them to push on. 

With BikeExchange also contributing, this chasing group gained one minute over the peloton, and brought the leaders to within 40 seconds. 

Despite this significant advantage, the peloton got organised, and with their strength in numbers they managed to claw back the advantage. With 35km to the finish, they brought back the chasing group, successfully neutralising the threat posed by Bernal, Landa and Bardet.

The leading group of 10 remained out in the front, however, and still had a lead of about 45 seconds.

The calming down of the race allowed the break’s advantage to grow up to 1:20. But with Sivakov still up the road, the GC teams could not afford to let them stay up the road, and Bahrain Victorious and EF Education-Nippo began to work to bring them back. Their impetus saw the gap start to come down, and at 20km from the finish it was down to less than 30 seconds

It was at this point that the crash that brought down Bernal and Yates occurred. They were held up along with two others from Ineos Grenadiers, all of whom did not remount for several minutes. 

The race was truly on at this point, meaning there was no slow down in the peloton as they continued to hunt down the break. 

The gap was down to just 15 seconds by the first climb to Burgos Castle, 15km from the finish, but the break had not given up hope of staying clear. An acceleration by Sivakov on the 1km twisting climb saw him go away from the rest along with Narvaez, Jacobs, Schmidt, Bayer, Trentin and Bayer and increase their lead back up to over 30 seconds.

The break became a little unorganised after the climb, with a Bahrain Victorious rider attacking, but soon resumed the chase, and began to chip into the break’s advantage once more. 

The combined efforts of Bahrain Victorious, BikeExchange, Caja Rural-Seguros RGA and Team DSM were enough to see the peloton make the catch 3.6km from the finish, which, despite a last-ditch attempt to remain out front from Brunel and Bayer, set up the final sprint finish up to Burgos castle won by Planckaert.