Remco and Roglic, endless show at the Volta Catalunya

2023-03-25T22:17:46.318Z

Evenepoel attacks with 30 kilometers to go and, unable to break away from the Slovenian and annoyed that he did not take over, he brakes for Groves to win the stage in a sprint.

Groves, as he did in Sabadell, wins the Volta stage. JOSEP LAGO (AFP)

Evenepoel's gauze was enough to blow up the stage, to explain once again that in cycling many race but only a few win, all governed under the dictatorship with pedals of six cyclists.

Two of them are in the Volta, Evenepoel and Roglic (Pogaçar, Vingegaard, Van der Poel and Van Aert are the others), warriors on two wheels who offer a show day in and day out.

The same thing that happened, of course, in the penultimate stage of the Volta.

It was

a show

, it was an exhibition and it was even a circus fair, all in one.

Also a final

sprint

to savor, a victory for Groves to remark himself as the Usain Bolt of the Volta.

This stage was supposed to be a transitional one, a day with steep slopes and shallow mountains, supposedly a day off for the leaders because on Sunday they touched curves with the slopes of Montjuïc.

But Evenepoel, gallant and proud, did not think so.

And this is how he explained it with 500 meters to go to crown the charming Alt de la Creu d'Aragall, with 30 kilometers to go.

It was one of those starts that leave a mark on the asphalt, pure fire that only Roglic could replicate, the rest of the peloton stunned by his audacity.

Electric and brilliant, the Belgian pushed and pushed, accelerating on each hill to try to open the gap and catch up with a Marc Soler who also tried his luck a few kilometers before.

But the Slovenian, a limpet, did not come off one iota.

He does not come loose even with solvent.

Until Evenepoel got the rage, also the theater.

More than anything because he asked him on several occasions, fuss in the middle, to take over, to play it among themselves.

But that inexperience does not match Roglic, who understood, rightly, that he should not enter the heat or expose himself, that he was the leader and already winner of two stages, that for what.

Enraged and upset, Remco put on the brakes and the little peloton that remained -many Hansel and Gretel

crumbs had been lost

along the way- absorbed them with nine kilometers to go.

What did not prevent, in any case, that he attacked again in the second intermediate sprint to take a second.

Or, rather, to recover the one that Roglic had taken from him in the previous bonus because the race began with zillions of escape attempts that did not bear fruit, all worried about having men in it.

Only then did Evenepoel come to his senses, as he accepted that his rival would shake his hand, that one runs to catch and the other not to be caught.

Many things may have happened from Martorell to Molins de Rei.

That several cyclists managed to open a gap for a few kilometers;

that Marc Soler dynamited the pulsations;

that Egan Bernal (former Tour winner who suffered an accident that almost cost him his life last year) retired after hitting the ground;

that Israel and Bahrain would throw to fight for the noble positions.

But what really happened is that Roglic and Evenepoel do not give up and that theirs is an endless show.

Well, except in the sprints, where Groves rules, the sensational Australian who had a puncture a few kilometers from the finish line, recovered positions, had the pleasure of pulling the shoulder out of a Remco who still had strength, and returned to conquer the stage as he did in Sabadell due to a kidney injury and in the

photo-finish

In the Volta, then, of transition there is little.

Montjuïc remains.

Roglic and Evenepoel once again have the floor.