Remco Evenepoel took the race by the horns and made the difference already on the opening day of the Volta a Comunitat Valenciana, storming to the yellow jersey.
The breakaway set early on in the stage having in it five riders, four of them representing the national PCT teams. Iván Moreno (Equipo Kern Pharma), Joan Bou (Euskaltel - Euskadi), Jesús Ezqquerra (Burgos-BH) and David González (Caja Rural - Seguros RGA), with the company of Human Powered Health's Chad Haga. With 32 kilometers to go the last surviving part of the breakaway was caught by a fast-moving peloton, nevertheless with King taking the KOM jersey for the day.
Quick-Step and Bahrain made for a very hard pace before the final climb as there were some meaningful battles for positioning and once inside the final climb moves started to occur. Before that though some crashes were present, with the likes of Marc Soler and Nans Peters loosing time, whilst Héctor Carretero and Gavin Mannion were forced to abandon.
Movistar put in some digs early in the final climb but early into the short effort Remco Evenepoel jumped on the wheel of Enric Mas and launched an attack of his own with4.7Km to go. No-one had the legs to follow, with Aleksandr Vlasov the nearest competitor.
Evenepoel powered on to the stage win, taking 16 seconds on Aleksandr Vlasov and 31 into Carlos Rodriguez who led the chasing group, including Enric Mas and Alejandro Valverde, home.
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