Volta a Catalunya: Primoz Roglic wins queen stage and defends race lead after cracking Evenepoel in final sprint

The Volta a Catalunya exploded today at Lo Port as expected, with another battle by Remco Evenepoel and Primoz Roglic. The race leader however took the best today, taking the victory and consolidating the race lead.

Perhaps the queen stage, that is what was in mind at the start of the day. The final climb to Lo Porto could decide the overall classification after several days of aggressive racing. Tsgabu Grmay (Team Jayco AlUla), Julen Amezqueta (Caja Rural - Seguros RGA), Ibai Azurmendi (Euskaltel - Euskadi) and Equipo Kern Pharma trio of José Félix Parra, Héctor Carretero and Pablo Castrillo.

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It was an ambitious move specially from the Spanish team who infiltrated three riders in front. The group held it together decently well but in the peloton there was no freedom given as Soudal - Quick-Step controlled the gap. Into the final climb with only under 9 kilometers in distance the gap was reduced to under a minute.

Grmay was the last of the breakaway riders to be caught as the peloton saw accelerations from both BORA - hansgrohe and Bahrain - Victorious who looked to set up attacks from their pure climbers. Soudal continued the work and an attack was clear. Evenepoel made his first attack with 4.4 kilometers to go. Primoz Roglic and Marc Soler responded, with the latter accelerating right after.

Evenepoel kept the pace high, as João Almeida then bridged across. Soler took responsibilities of the group afterwards so as to ambition a triumph for the Portuguese. The trio seemed rather equal going into the sprint but that was far from true. Launched very early on, Remco Evenepoel seemed to have the upper hand, but Roglic managed to match the initial acceleration and then rode on to victory as Evenepoel suffered through the final meters. Almeida climbed to third place.

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