Volta Ciclista a Catalunya 2025 Stage 1

March 24, 2025 There is hardly a meter of flat road in the 178KM route for Stage 1 of the Volta Ciclista a Catalunya. The race starts in the town of Sant Feliu de Guíxols on the Costa Brava and heads North before turning inland to do a large lap with two categorized climbs and plenty of non-categorized climbs. The riders then do a 60KM loop before coming back into the streets of Sant Feliu de Guíxols to a 600M finishing straight that averages 5%. A total of 2,600M of elevation gain on the day will likely serve a puncheur or a quick GC rider for the win today. Spain has not escaped the rain that has battered the riders in just about every other race in the last two weeks across Europe. The neutral start was dry but as the first attackers went clear, rain drops began to fall and would continue throughout the day. Jan Castellon of Caja Rural Seguros RGA, José Luis Faura of Burgos-Burpellet BH, and Danny van der Tuuk and Nicolás Alustiza of Euskatel-Euskadi went up the road early on and with 82KM to go, they had 1 minute 20 seconds advantage on the peloton. Ineos picked up the pace and were barring down on the break. Alustiza attacked when the gap ticked down to 30 seconds but the other three continued to ride behind. The rain was pouring down as the riders entered Sant Feliu de Guíxols with 60KM remaining to take on the smaller lap South of town. All four breakaway riders were caught in the finishing straight as Ineos continued their charge on the front. The race went into a holding pattern with the peloton in a block across the road until 43KM to go when Redbull-Bora Hansgrohe picked up the pace to put Primož Roglič in a position to take bonus seconds at the Intermediate Sprint in Llagostera. The line seemed to come faster than some riders expected and it was Enric Mas of Movistar who took the 3 seconds, Domen Novak of UAE-XRG took 2 seconds with Roglič taking 1 second. UAE-XRG, Ineos, Redbull-Bora Hansgrohe, and Alpecin-Deceuninck all took turns leading the bunch through the hills to the headland overlooking the coast. Only about 50 riders were still in the bunch as they started the descent back in to Sant Feliu de Guíxols at 7KM to go. Alpecin-Deceuninck had three riders in a line at the front and led down the most focused part of the descent. With 2KM to go, Tibor Del Grosso rolled off the front and his teammates allowed the gap to slowly widen. Matthew Brennan of Visma-Lease Bike was the only one in a position to chase but he had at least 10 seconds to close and Del Grosso's teammate, Kaden Groves, was glued on his wheel. Brennan dug in and with 300M to go, he started to claw back Del Grosso who was tying up and could not push any harder. Brennan carried his sprint to the line and only passed Del Grosso with about 20M to go. Groves could not overtake Brennan who took his second win in just a few days and the first World Tour win of his young career in spectacular fashion. Alpecin-Deceuninck looked defeated and disappointed to have missed the opportunity but Brennan was the strongest on the day. Most of the GC riders stayed in the main group except for Ben O'Connor of Jayco AlUla who is 25 seconds down after time bonuses are factored in. Sepp Kuss of Visma-Lease a Bike lost nearly 3 minutes after being dropped with about 25KM to go.