Evenepoel Easily Wins Volta a la Comunitat Valenciana

The programme

In addition, his new team, Red Bull–BORA–hansgrohe, is creating a new narrative for the three-time world time trial champion. The film is called “The Winner” and seems to be about a rider who has forgotten how to lose. Evenepoel won his first three races of the year and now has a record of six wins out of eight races. (Even Red Bull knows that you can’t win them all.) That’s quite a contrast to the way Evenepoel began his previous seasons, when he rode for Soudal Quick-Step and recorded more losses than wins.

In addition, he is scheduled this year to ride only three spring one-day races, the three Ardennes Classics, in which Tadej Pogačar is so far not scheduled to appear and where his main rival may be Thibau Nys (Lidl-Trek) – though Mathieu van der Poel’s programme has not yet been made public by Alpecin–Premier Tech. Clearly, the team wants Evenepoel to come into the Tour de France feeling invincible. Maybe it will work.

However, he has built his record against riders he was expected to beat, even João Almeida (UAE Team Emirates–XRG), who had not raced this year before the Valenciana, who is not a Classics rider and whose skill set is tailored to much longer ascents. He finished second in the GC, 31 seconds behind Evenepoel, whose promising young teammate Giulio Pellizzari finished third, at 34 seconds.

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“Super good week,” the winner declared after his first stage-race win for his new team, highlighting his two stage wins and teammate Arne Marit’s second place, behind Biniam Girmay (NSN Cycling), on stage 1. “The first day, Arne [Marit] was second, then day by day we started to win a bit more, we started to really ride as a team all day, and today, we end with the final jersey, first and third in GC and a lot of stages also in the front. So I think it’s very good. Everybody did a very good week, and I think it was an amazing week here in Valencia.”

Asked if he was peaking too soon, Evenepoel replied, “Am I worried I’m in shape too early? No, I think that, if I’m a decent winter athlete, I’m always in pretty good shape in the first few weeks. I haven’t had any altitude camps yet. I think we’ll gradually work towards the lightest weight. That means there’s still some room for improvement.”

The winning move

Evenepoel won the Valenciana on the final categorised climb of stage 4, the Puig de la Llorença (2.3 km@ 9.3%, with ramps over 15% at the bottom), when he raced away on his own near the top of the climb. He was not immediately pursued by Almeida and rode the last 12 km of the stage untroubled on his own. Almeida eventually did make an attempt to at least minimise the damage, but – even helped fitfully by teammate Brandon McNulty – could make no headway and finished 24 seconds behind the winner. He managed to outsprint the two unhelpful riders who accompanied him, Antonio Tiberi (Bahrain-Victorious), and Pellizzari, who was not about to help him catch his leader.

Sunday’s final stage was marked by a 21-rider breakaway that was eventually whittled down to four by the usual attrition and several crashes in sharp curves on the slick tarmac. UAE Team Emirates–XRG attempted to split the peloton and open some distance between Almeida and Evenepoel, but the Belgian was vigilant and it came to nothing. However, the bunch never managed to corral the four riders left from the breakaway, leading to a tense sprint, won by Raúl García Pierna. It was Movistar’s first win of the year, García Pierna’s first win for his new team and the first professional non-ITT victory of his career.

“I’m really happy, because yesterday things didn’t go how we wanted, so we had a bit of anger,” the 24-year-old Spanish rider said, after featuring in several breakaways during the race. “We knew that today was a day where the breakaway could make it and, well, it worked.”

This Valenciana was also the arena of a maiden professional victory, that of the 20-year-old American Andrew (“A.J.”) August (INEOS Grenadiers), who beat Ådne Holter (Uno-X Mobility) and Florian Vermeersch (UAE Team Emirates–XRG) in a sprint from a breakaway after letting them do all the work in front. “I’d saved a lot of energy by not working full gas, but it was not my role to contribute,” he said afterwards. “So I took advantage of being fresh, sprinted from the back and crossed the line first.” I wonder if he explained that to the riders he beat, and if they happily accepted that explanation. Did he mean to say it was their role to contribute and his role to win? I don’t think that’s how it works.

It was also a good race for Girmay, who won stage 1, retained the yellow jersey after stage 2’s neutralisation, retained it again when he finished fourth on stage 3, and only gave it up after being stymied by the climbs of stage 4.