Evenepoel and Vingegaard put on echelon show in Catalonia, but Belgian crashes in final kilometre

Until now, the real fireworks had stayed away at the Volta a Catalunya. The opening two stages both ended in sprints. In stage 1, Godon had narrowly edged out Evenepoel, while on day two the Frenchman had to settle for defeat as Magnus Cort Nielsen came out on top. Stage 3 also looked set to suit the fast men, although the route still included nearly 2,300 metres of climbing.

Most of that climbing came early. After 20 kilometres, the riders faced the Coll de les Llebres, a brute of a climb measuring just over 10 kilometres at 6.6 percent. Ideal terrain for the day’s breakaway, then, and once again Baptiste Veistroffer was involved. The Lotto-Intermarché rider, already wearing the mountains jersey and was in the breakaway for the third day in a row!

He was joined by teammate Reuben Thompson, Diego Uriarte of Equipo Kern Pharma, Yago Aguirre of Euskaltel-Euskadi, Josh Burnett of Burgos Burpellet BH and Mark Stewart of Modern Adventure Pro Cycling. Veistroffer duly took maximum points on the first climb, strengthening his grip on the mountains classification, and he struck again on the second ascent as well.

But in the rolling section that followed, the breakaway riders saw the peloton edging ever closer, even if the bunch allowed the six escapees some room for a little longer. UAE Team Emirates-XRG, meanwhile, were dealt a bitter blow. Five riders hit the deck in one incident, including Ivo Oliveira and Jay Vine. The Australian was forced to abandon the race. Sadly, it is far from the first time Vine has suffered a heavy crash in his career.

The break was still allowed to tackle the day’s final climb before the race was brought back together, which meant more mountain points for Veistroffer. After that, their race was run. At the summit, the gap had been cut to just 25 seconds, with Red Bull-BORA-hansgrohe already lifting the pace. Visma | Lease a Bike had also begun to move up, as the wind was becoming more and more of a factor. With 30 kilometres to go, everything was back together.

Not for long, though, because before you could say Barcelona, the peloton had been ripped apart in the crosswinds. Visma | Lease a Bike, Lidl-Trek and Red Bull-BORA-hansgrohe were all alert, as were INEOS Grenadiers and race leader Godon. Evenepoel was so strong that he briefly tried to ride away on his own, but Vingegaard immediately recognised the danger and closed him down.

That left the two strongest riders in the bunch out front together, on what had looked like a flat stage. Could it get any stranger? The second group was not far behind, but João Almeida was caught further back, leaving UAE Team Emirates-XRG with a major chase on their hands. Visma | Lease a Bike and Red Bull, meanwhile, disrupted the pursuit from behind. Even when the chasing groups merged, they still made almost no impression on the gap.

What followed was a thrilling battle all the way to the line. Inside the final ten kilometres, the sprint trains began to form and the gap finally started to come down. When Vingegaard stopped taking turns, the move became far harder to sustain. Evenepoel refused to throw in the towel and kept pressing on, which made for a breathless finale. Then came the cruel twist: the Belgian crashed with around 400 metres to go, and Vingegaard was swept up by the bunch in the final few hundred metres. The sprint was ultimately won by Godon.