Jasper Philipsen (Alpecin-Deceuninck) got to work making up for his abandon of the Tour de France by levelling up to leader of the Vuelta a España after winning the opening stage in Novara.
Philipsen's teammates delivered him to the front at the perfect moment, allowing him to easily hold off any challengers. Ethan Vernon (Israel-Premier Tech) was second and Orluis Aular (Movistar Team) third.
Favourite Mads Pedersen (Lidl-Trek) was caught out of position and was unable to even crack the top 10.
"Winning is always a nice feeling, and definitely when there is a reward like the red jersey, of course it's a nice present," Philipsen said.
"We managed to do our lead-out the way we wanted to - with Jonas [Rickaert] and Edward [Planckaert] in the final kilometre they executed perfect. I saw 175 meters to go and had to start sprinting. I'm really happy it worked out for us.
"After my crash in the Tour, I was really disappointed to be out - we worked really long for it and it was a major goal. It was a setback - you have to find new goals. This was a nice goal, but I knew we only had one chance because there aren't many opportunities for a sprinter like me at this Vuelta."
How it unfolded
Starting with the Gran Salida in Turin, the opening stage of this year’s Vuelta a España took the race along a 186.1km-long route across the Piedmont region in the northwest of Italy for a sprint finish in the Roman city of Novara.
The day began with a group of six riders establishing itself at the head of the race, as Alessandro Verre (Arkéa-B&B Hotels), Pepijn Reinderink (Soudal Quick-Step), Nicolas Vinokurov (XDS Astana), Joel Nicolau (Caja Rural-Seguros RGA), Koen Bouwman (Jayco AlUla) and Hugo de la Calle (Burgos Burpellet BH) got themselves up the road.
Their advantage was kept well within check by the peloton, with Lidl-Trek and Alpecin-Deceuninck controlling the gap for most of the day, as they looked to ensure a sprint finish for respective sprinters.
The sole categorised climb of the day came around 63km into the stage, with Verre taking the maximum points to secure the polka dot jersey for tomorrow’s stage. Meanwhile, Reinderink was the first to cross the line at the intermediate sprint in Valdengo ahead of Vinokurov and Bouwman, giving them six, four and two bonus seconds respectively.
The peloton then gradually began to reel in the breakaway and had them within sight, before De la Calle made a move off the front of the group and went solo in an attempt to win the combativity award. A few of the other riders made a half-hearted attempt to go with him, but they were soon caught by the bunch behind.
With De la Calle now the sole leader at the head of the race, the peloton allowed him to extend his advantage once again, but always kept him well within reach and eventually made the catch with just under 40km to go.
Many teams then began to come to the fore, as they looked to position themselves at the front of the bunch ahead of a technical finale which featured plenty of road furniture.
Lidl-Trek were washed away in one of the many roundabouts in the final kilometre, while Alpecin-Deceuninck left every other sprinter in their wake with a textbook leadout to deliver Philipsen to the victory.
Results
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