Juan Ayuso outsprints Primoz Roglic to win La Molina summit finish in Catalunya
Cycling
Juan Ayuso and Primoz Roglic were the two absolute favourites to win today's stage at the Volta a Catalunya and also the overall classification. At La Molina, it came down to a sprint between the two, but it was the UAE Team Emirates - XRG rider to take the victory on the first summit finish of the race.
A long day in the mountains, with 220 kilometers to race in Catalunya. Not a day where many looked to attack early on, as four riders comfortably took the lead of the race and began building their gap. Bruno Armirail, Lorenzo Germani, Alex Molenaar and Matz Wenzel spent a few hours in the head of the race, until Armirail attacked himself in the penultimate climb of the day.
Alone now, he got a gap of a maximum of 3 minutes and even began threatening to take the stage win unless the rhythm accelerated in the peloton. But most teams waited until the final ascent to La Molina to finally accelerate and begin thinning down the peloton properly.
The pace at the start of the climb was high, with a couple of moves from Nairo Quintana and Sepp Kuss seeing the speed increase quite a bit, but then a standstill between a 30-rider peloton. With just under 7 kilometers to go George Bennett, Lorenzo Fortunato and Marc Soler made a move, with all teams looking to put Red Bull - BORA - hansgrohe under pressure. Bennett was dropped whilst Kuss bridged across with 4 kilometers to go, but the trio was caught with 500 meters to go at the start of the final ramp.
Marc Soler hit the front to leadout Juan Ayuso, but it was Primoz Roglic who launched first. However this wasn't enough as the Spaniard took him up on the final corner and sprinted for a brilliant photo-finish victory ahead of the Slovenian. The two had a small gap over the rest, with Mikel Landa taking third place.
Read also
| 1 | Ayuso Juan | UAE Team Emirates-XRG | 05:49:29 |
| 2 | Roglic Primoz | Red Bull-BORA-hansgrohe | + 00 |
| 3 | Landa Mikel | Soudal Quick-Step | + 02 |
| 4 | Martinez Lenny | Bahrain Victorious | + 04 |
| 5 | Van Eetvelt Lennert | Lotto | + 04 |
| 6 | Mas Enric | Movistar Team | + 04 |
| 7 | Bernal Egan | INEOS Grenadiers | + 04 |
| 8 | López Martin | XDS Astana Team | + 04 |
| 9 | Carapaz Richard | EF Education-EasyPost | + 04 |
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- agreed. flanders is a beast. i like tadej, but i’m full on rooting for mathieu next sunday.OCexile29-03-2025
- Indeed, strong as ever on the flat, maybe stronger on climbs. There are very few records within reach for contemporary riders (Cabendish had to extend his career to get his and took twice as long as Merckx to equality), this would be one that would be very hard to take away.Mistermaumau29-03-2025
- I thought newspeak was condensing any statement into the smallest number of pertinent words.Mistermaumau29-03-2025
- flanders is mvdp’s favorite race and he’s one win away from being the lone record holder with 4 wins. i’d be very surprised if the gap that pogačar opened in him there 2 years ago wasn’t THE major focus of all his training. and when mathieu has a goal, he turns himself inside out to achieve it. we’ll see next week if he got there, but i’d agree with van avermat’s assessment of van der poel’s fitness.OCexile29-03-2025
- It’s almost like newspeak. It’s classics season, Pogacar’s main rival has always been van der Poel. Then grand tour season will begin, and we will pivot mid sentence and Pogacar’s main rival will have always been Vingegaard. What a season this promises to be. Let’s hope they stay healthy (and Vingegaard gets past the concussion).RidesHills29-03-2025
- Great that he’s decided to do Flanders though his weight remark is irrelevant, Mads is proportionately heavier and MVDP has the same weight but is around 10cm shorter.Mistermaumau29-03-2025
- Yeah, looks slow up there.Jumpyjohn28-03-2025
- lol His aim was well off! MVP was well past him before the guy decided to spit.Cyclingsbestfan28-03-2025
- But you know that’s what makes this website live ;-)Mistermaumau28-03-2025
- I hope he stays upright too and I hope that in this years Paris Roubaix we get a proper good old fashioned man against man race. Can't wait!Cyclingsbestfan28-03-2025