Valverde gets revenge in Volta a Catalunya
Valverde would have been race leader, but the jury penalised him one minute in the overall after Tuesday’s stage. BMC’s Tejay van Garderen took the overall race lead now.
Alejandro Valverde: “It was a very fast start before the break went finally away. The last 50km were also really hard, too. Sky made it harder with a strong pace through the entire finale, but the team kept me protected perfectly and Soler was excellent controlling all moves into the last kilometers. Part of this victory is his, too. To be honest, I just had to make sure I sprinted properly. When Daniel Martin attacked, I went on his wheel quickly - I knew it would be difficult for him to beat me, because such uphill finishes really suit me well.
“We must continue to ride focusing on one stage at a time - get through Thursday first and then see how we’re feeling for Lo Port, which will be a really stepp finish. I prefer not to further opine on what happened yesterday, everyone could see the images. Inwardly, we know we won that stage and we did it fairly. For the time being, our Volta can only be qualified as phenomenal.”
Volta a Catalunya 2017 – stage 3 results (Mataró – La Molina):
1 Alejandro Valverde (Movistar) 5:07:12
2 Daniel Martin (Quick-Step Floors)
3 Adam Yates (Orica-Scott)
4 Romain Bardet (AG2R)
5 Ilnur Zakarin (Katusha-Alpecin)
6 Geraint Thomas (Team Sky)
7 Alberto Contador (Trek-Segafredo)
8 Tejay van Garderen (BMC)
9 Michael Woods (Cannondale-Drapac)
10 Davide Formolo (Cannondale-Drapac)
General classification after stage 3:
1 Tejay van Garderen (BMC) 10:24:33
2 Samuel Sanchez (BMC) +41”
3 Geraint Thomas (Team Sky) +44”
4 Alejandro Valverde (Movistar) +45”
5 Christopher Froome (Team Sky) +49”
6 Marc Soler (Movistar) +01’10”
7 Alberto Contador (Trek-Segafredo) +01’13”
8 Adam Yates (Orica-Scott) +01’18”
9 Bauke Mollema (Trek-Segafredo) +01’25”
10 Jarlinson Pantano (Trek-Segafredo)
