After he attacked on the descent of the Desert de las Palmes climb with 18km to go on stage 1 of the Volta a la Comunitat Valenciana, Matej Mohorič was left bitterly disappointed at the finish, as he was not able to catch the leading pair of Alessandro Tonelli and Manuele Tarozzi and was eventually caught by the peloton. The Slovenian rider was still able to finish seventh on the stage, with Jonathan Milan and Michael Matthews beating him in the bunch sprint behind.
In an interview with Eurosport after the race, Mohorič said “it’s the first day of racing for most of the riders in peloton, so most guys don’t have the confidence yet and it’s hard to take the pressure on your shoulders and say that it’s us who should ride today, so it was on and off and in the end the breakaway made it”.
His Bahrain Victorious team put in a lot of effort in the peloton ahead of his attack on the final climb, with Mohorič saying that “it’s a missed chance for us, but I think we did our part. We did a lot of work in the front, but maybe other teams should commit in the following days if we want to fight for the stage wins”.
Despite being two minutes behind the leading riders at the top of the final climb, Mohorič still decided to go on the attack, stating that “you never know with these time gaps, it’s tricky when you are in the race as we only have limited information on our radios. The official time gaps said two minutes at the top, so I knew it would be a long shot, but you never know”.
Mohorič was optimistic about the next few stages though, as he said that “it was not to be today, but I am happy that the legs feel good and I’m confident for the rest of this race and especially for the races to come”.
