Winner Schultz receives well-deserved 👍 from Pogacar: "He was going twice as fast"

Nick Schultz surprisingly won the opening stage of the Tour of Catalonia on Monday. The Australian of Israel-Premier Tech caught all the remaining sprinters off guard with an attack at the end of the stage, narrowly managing to stay ahead of the fast-approaching Tadej Pogacar (UAE-Team Emirates) at the finish line.

"I don't win often, so this is really beautiful," an ecstatic Schultz said in the post-race flash interview. It turned out to be a planned move by his team. "With four kilometers to go, I was at the front to help Stevie Williams, but he yelled at me to go when we reached that final kilometer. I picked my moment, and when I looked back, I saw I had a gap. But it's a long ride, that final kilometer. It felt like an eternity," Schultz commented on the uphill finish in Catalonia.

Pogacar launched his sprint with 250 meters to go but just failed to snatch the victory from the Australian. "I saw Pogacar approaching. He left the peloton like a bullet. I still believed I could do it, but it didn’t really matter where he started his sprint. I had to ride as hard as I could to the finish since I had that gap. If the finish were two meters further, he would have caught up with me. I think he was going twice as fast as I was, but I had to block that out."

Schultz proud of Israel-Premiere Tech's achievement

"This is a fantastic win for myself, especially since Stevie also managed to finish third." Williams, who had won earlier this season at the Tour Down Under, also crossed the line jubilantly. "Mike (Woods, ed.) is also here for the general classification, so this is a great way to start the week. We are here with a really nice group of riders and staff, and I can’t thank them enough," he concluded his story.