Vuelta a España: Roglic claims opening stage on Alto de Arrate

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Defending champion and overall favourite Primož Roglič (Jumbo-Visma) won the opening stage of the Vuelta a España, prevailing from a selective general classification group atop the Alto de Arrate above Eibar and taking the first red jersey of the race.

The Slovenian jumped away from an elite eight-man lead group that had emerged on the steep slopes of the Arrate, the general classification race exploding on day one. His acceleration into the final kilometre was enough to clinch victory, with Richard Carapaz (Ineos Grenadiers) and Dan Martin (Israel Start-Up Nation) rounding out the podium a second behind.

A highly selective first day saw Esteban Chaves (Mitchelton-Scott), Felix Großschartner (Bora-Hansgrohe) and Enric Mas (Movistar) also finish in the lead group, while Hugh Carthy (EF Pro Cycling) came in four seconds down having attempted an attack just before Roglič launched.

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"It's nice to win, eh?" Roglič said in typically understated fashion after the finish. "I'm very happy, really very happy. The team again rode really strong, they worked perfectly the whole day and at the end I was able to win, so it’s top. It's a beautiful start. I'll try to enjoy it day by day.

"This is just the final; before it was already quite hard. In the final climb we were going full gas, we were all suffering. We had the crazy guy – Sepp – did the climb.

"It's quite a strange season; I had a lot of races and stress and everything. I just want to enjoy it here. It's super nice that in these times we can still do some races and hopefully it was fun to watch."

There was carnage further back as Tom Dumoulin (Jumbo-Visma) and Alejandro Valverde (Movistar) lost 51 seconds and the likes of Aleksandr Vlasov (Astana) and David Gaudu (Groupama-FDJ) lost minutes.

Meanwhile, the GC hopes of heavyweights Thibaut Pinot (Groupama-FDJ) and Chris Froome (Ineos Grenadiers) already look bleak to the point of hopeless, the pair dropped on the penultimate climb of the day, losing 10 and 11 minutes at the finish.

The result puts Roglič in red by five seconds ahead of Carapaz and seven ahead of Martin, while he also holds the green points jersey. Teammate Sepp Kuss will don the blue polka dots of top climber after leading over the Arrate, while 25-year-old Mas is best young rider.

How it unfolded

The opening stage of the 2020 Vuelta a España meant no easing into the race, with four categorised climbs culminating in a finish atop the Alto de Arrate, a climb near Eibar in the Basque Country. A regular feature at Itzulia, the Vuelta last visited back in 2012 where Alejandro Valverde beat Joaquim Rodríguez, Chris Froome and eventual race winner Alberto Contador on stage 3.

Burgos-BH, who won a stage last year courtesy of Ángel Madrazo, kicked off the attacking early on, trying several times before placing a man in the early break with runner-up to Madrazo on that stage 5, Jetse Bol.

The Dutchman was joined out front by Rémi Cavagna (Deceuninck-QuickStep), Tim Wellens (Lotto Soudal), Jasha Sütterlin (Sunweb) and Quentin Jauregui (AG2R La Mondiale) in the early kilometres of the stage.

A grim, wet day in Gipuzkoa saw Jumbo-Visma take control of the peloton almost straight away ahead of Movistar, working for their GC men Roglič, Dumoulin, Valverde and Mas.

Aritz Bagüs (Caja Rural-Seguros RGA) attempted to make it across to the break during the early stages of the day, but called off the chase after 30 kilometres, leaving the five-man break four minutes up the road.

The first half of the stage skirted the coast without much drama, before turning inland at Zumaia for the riders to tackle a tougher second part. The long drag to the first climb of the day, the Puerto de Udana (6km at 2.3 per cent) saw Burgos-BH take up a position alongside Jumbo-Visma, while EF Pro Cycling's Daniel Martínez took a tumble in the peloton 95 kilometres out.

Julius van der Berg and Logan Owen were called back to help the Colombian chase back on, while up front the break's advantage had been slimmed down under two minutes. Martínez made it back in time for the climb, where Jauregui beat Bol for the first mountain classification points of the race.

Grand Tour debutant, Sunweb's Ilan Van Wilder, left the race midway through the stage, joining Jauregui's teammate Mathias Frank as the first abandons of the Vuelta. Another AG2R man, Alexandre Geniez, would later join the duo in abandoning.

The day's second climb – the Alto de Kampazar (6.7km at 4.1 per cent) – saw Jauregui take another three points ahead of Bol, with just 1:15 separating the break and Astana- and Movistar-led peloton with 53 kilometres left to run.

Three kilometres later, as the peloton closed to within a minute, Cavagna struck out alone. He was soon caught by the rest – bar Wellens – on the unclassified Alto de Karabieta. A descent into the valley and eastern loop would follow, before a climb to the same peak from the east and the finale on Arrate.

Sutterlin would make an attempt on the descent, but down in the valley the quartet were back together, passing the 30 kilometres to-go mark just 30 seconds up on the peloton as Cavagna gave up the ghost.

The rest of the break didn't last much longer, with Jauregui the last man brought back just before the intermediate sprint. Caja Rural-Seguros RGA and Bahrain McLaren led the peloton onto the day's penultimate climb, the Alto de Elgata (6.2km at 5.2 per cent), with Michael Woods (EF Pro Cycling) crashing at the base as Caja Rural's Jonathan Lastra made a brief move up front.

Two big names struggled to stay in touch with the 60-man peloton on the climb – Groupama-FDJ's Thibaut Pinot and Ineos Grenadiers' Chris Froome. The Britons teams present and future (Israel Start-Up Nation) worked on the front, with the British squad continuing to push on over the top.

They led the way through Eibar, the small industrial town in the Ego Valley, leading the race on to the Arrate – the main road rather than the narrow goat track at 5.3km long and an average gradient of 7.7 per cent – with three men leading out Richard Carapaz.

At the six to go mark, still on the lower slopes of the climb, the Ecuadorian had just Iván Sosa for company as scores of riders were sheared off the back. Quality climbers such as Martínez, Aleksandr Vlasov (Astana) and David Gaudu (Groupama-FDJ) all dropped surprisingly early as Sepp Kuss (Jumbo-Visma) put in the first attack of the Arrate.

He was joined by teammates Roglič and George Bennettt, as well as Carapaz, Chaves, Carthy , Großschartner, Martin and Mas – a huge selection already on day one of an 18-day race.

A group including Tom Dumoulin (Jumbo-Visma), Alejandro Valverde (Movistar) formed the main chase behind, though already conceding chunks of time on this, the first of 11 uphill or summit finishes at the Vuelta.

The leaders crested the climb 2.2 kilometres out led by Kuss, with a reported 30-second gap back to Valverde's group. Carthy was the next to attack, dropping the American, his attack answered by Roglič as the group reached the final kilometre.

There was no response to the 30-year-old's now notable acceleration, with Roglič taking advantage of the slightly downhill run to the line to stay away and grab a second plus bonuses on his GC rivals.

The Dumoulin-Valverde group, which also contained Astana's Gorka Izagirre and UAE Team Emirates' Davide Formolo, trailed in at 51 seconds, while Gaudu finished at 2:22, Vlasov at 4:31, Pinot at 9:56 and Froome at 11:12.