Stage 3: Girona › Girona – 156.6 km
A breakaway surprised the peloton on the opening stage of the Volta and threw the General Classification battle into chaos, and the GC-related surprises continued on Stage 2 when Alejandro Valverde outclassed several sprinters to take a win and valuable bonus seconds. A GC battle on Stage 3 of the Volta a Catalunya, however, would not come as a big surprise: with two Cat. 1 ascents inside the final half of the day, out of five total categorized climbs, this will be a stage that the climbers have marked in the roadbook. The Alt dels Ángels (Category 1, 6 kilometers at a 5.5% average gradient) is the uphill challenge to know here. The riders will crest it for the first time about halfway through the stage, then they’ll hit a Cat. 2, and then they’ll return to the Alt del Ángels once more for a second helping. From the top of that ascent it’s 13 km to the finish, and it’s downhill until there are less than 3 kilometers to go. Attacks launched on the Alt del Ángels could stick. The day’s climbing is not steep enough to be particularly intimidating to the marquee overall contenders, but the race situation after two stages could see the uphill specialists trying to make things happen on the slopes regardless.
With five categorized climbs punctuating the stage, a breakaway is possible here, though the GC teams are extra wary of ignoring the breakers after Stage 1. What’s more, bonus seconds are on the line in this Volta. With several of the top GC contenders sporting fast finishing kicks, the motivation in the peloton to reel in anyone off the front will be high.
One GC contender boasting a particularly speedy finishing kick is the rider who took stage 2. Alejandro Valverde is perfectly suited for this stage. He’s explosive enough on the climbs to try to break free, but a flat finish will make it likely that a small group of aggressors will cross the line here together, and Valverde is deadly sprinting out of a small group. As much of an advantage as the breakaway riders from Stage 1 have here in Catalunya, Vavlerde won’t go down without a fight.
Rigoberto Urán, Giampaolo Caruso, and Wilco Kelderman, all of them also sporting strong sprinting abilities to go with their climbing legs, will all be riders to watch in this scenario as well.
For many of the Cannondale-Garmin riders, these are home roads. This is an excellent profile for Dan Martin, who could be looking to launch an attack on the final ascent. His team knows how to make things interesting on days packed with climbs, and they have the firepower to do so—they might look to put on a show here similar to the one they put on in the 2013 Tour de France when Dan Martin won a mountainous Stage 9 after his team had been on the attack all day.
It’s not out of the question that Alberto Contador or Chris Froome try to make something happen on these climbs, but they aren’t quite steep enough or long enough to favor either of the former Tour de France winners. It won’t be easy for them to get clear here. In Froome’s case, a teammate may be better suited for this stage: Wout Poels tends to thrive on days with repeated not-inhumane climbs.
JJ Rojas, Enrico Gasparotto, and Julian Alaphilippe are among the sprintier types who at least have a shot of surviving. Meanwhile, breakaway-loving Thomas De Gendt probably has this parcours in mind as a perfect opportunity to try to take a long-range victory. He’s way down on GC and not a threat to the overall. Allowing him to make it to the line would not have the same implications for the peloton that their mistake on Stage 1 had. Amets Txurruka and the already-out-of-GC-contention Carlos Betancur are others to watch in a breakaway scenario.
VeloHuman Stage Favorites
1. Alejandro Valverde | 2. Rigoberto Urán | 3. Dan Martin
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-Dane Cash
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