Movistar outsmart UAE and INEOS! Iván Romeo wins stage 3 at Valenciana as João Almeida becomes new race leader
Cycling
Iván Romeo has won stage 3 of the Volta a Comunitat Valenciana with a strong solo attack in the final kilometers of the stage. The Movistar Team benefited from his power and from the tough ascent that dropped former race leader Mathias Vacek.
Although it was not as chaotic as in France, the start of the stage in Spain was another dreadful one for some as we saw race leader Mathias Vacek involved in a crash that saw other riders abandon. José Juan Prieto, Unai Iribar, Francisco Muñoz, Matteo Scalco, Walter Calzoni and Filippo Ridolfo formed the day's breakaway, anticipating the mountain battle ahead.
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This situation remained until the base of the final climb, with Muñoz being the final rider to get caught with 27 kilometers to go with the work of UAE Team Emirates - XRG. The Emirati team put several men to work and dropped the slightly injured Vacek - a new race then began, as UAE's work became defensive against their rivals.
Jefferson Alveiro Cepeda attacked close to the summit of the climb, but when Santiago Buitrago attacked it was virtual leader João Almeida himself who responded and the two would go on to take bonifications at the top of the climb. The work of INEOS brought back the duo, and soon after Iván Romeo attacked from the group - sparking a chase of INEOS, UAE and Bahrain who each had a men willing to work against the Spanish time-trialist.
He made it to the final ascent and crossed the line with a glorious stage victory, his first as an elite rider - also making his way closer to the race lead. Santiago Buitrago sprinted to second place in front of Almeida, but the bonifications of the Portuguese were enough to net him the race lead.
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- Mine goes to MVDP for entertaining us all year round :-) Stellar race, Ganna impressive in his own way as many predicted after some oddly lacklustre times.Mistermaumau23-03-2025
- i remember when not too long ago mathieu was regarded as a real tactical knucklehead. i’m not sure that was ever quite accurate, but it’s certainly the case that over the years he has become a real master tactician. in the biggest races, van der poel rarely makes choices that don’t fully optimize every specific advantage he has.OCexile23-03-2025
- Whatever the result, I believe the strategy by UAE to launch Pogacar was absolutely the right one. Unfortunately, they just were not able to execute it the way they must have planned, being all over the place at the start of the Cipressa.Cooldude23-03-2025
- They are without doubt not just the best two classics riders of this generation, but amongst the best of all time. MvdP is more suited to MSR and PR (which Pog has yet to race), while Pog is now almost untouchable at LBL and Lombardia. RVV is the only one where both basically have an equal chance to win.Cooldude23-03-2025
- bravissima!
maria2024202423-03-2025 - According to Tadej's Strava upload, he went up the Cipressa at an average speed of 37.6kph. Rocket ship! He did the 5.63km verified 'Cipressa' Strava segment in 8:59 minutes, which has a 4.3% average grade and total elevation gain of 229m. Naturally, he got the Strava KOM.Pogboom23-03-2025
- In Track and Field, there's Usain Bolt in the sprints and Kenya's Kipchoge in the marathon. Though Bolt can quite easily beat Kipchoge in the 100m dash, he probably won't even finish a marathon. Tadej won't beat Mathieu in a sprint, yet he wins the TDF while MVDP languishes in 50th place. Both are great champions in their respective fields, but my admiration goes to Tadej for trying.FredMan23-03-2025
- They went into the race as co-leaders!frieders323-03-2025
- He can win that sprint if he plays it right but leaving tha gap was ridiculous ! A spring after 6+ hours isn't a guarantee for MVDPfrieders323-03-2025
- The climbs are steeper on Flanders giving Pogi the advanatge as we saw before when he won!frieders323-03-2025