Australian dash ace Kaden Groves has overcome unlikely odds to combat again and win his second stage of the Volta a Catalunya after being pressured to borrow a teammate’s bike within the frantic bolt to the end.
Key factors:
- Australian rider Kaden Groves has received his second stage in three days on the Volta a Catalunya in Spain
- On stage six, Groves beat France’s Bryan Coquard within the remaining dash after exchanging bikes within the remaining kilometres and racing again to the leaders
- On general normal classification, Primož Roglič leads Remco Evenepoel by 10 seconds with one stage to go
Groves seemed to have blown any probability of taking Saturday’s sixth stage as a sluggish puncture pressured him to ditch his bike with 4 kilometres left, take one other belonging to his colleague Xandro Meurisse after which pedal furiously to get again into the lead group.
As soon as he had rejoined, Groves remarkably nonetheless had sufficient power in reserve to get in the fitting place and show comfortably the quickest and strongest of all his dash rivals as he sped to his second win in three days for Belgium’s Alpecin-Deceuninck crew.
It was the fourth WorldTour win for the 24-year-old and simply his second for his new crew — however not one of the others had been as dramatic and unlikely as this one.
“Primary was good however a second stage win this week, so I am very completely satisfied,” smiled Groves.
“With about seven, eight kilometres to go, I felt my rear tyre having a sluggish leak, and wasn’t positive whether or not to cease or not. I used to be considering whether or not to enter the dash with it being fairly flat.
“Ultimately, although, I’ve acquired to thank my crew administrators. They determined I ought to do a motorcycle swap with Xandro so I finished, he gave me his bike and with the assistance of [teammate] Nicola [Conci] I acquired again to the entrance for the dash.
“I used to be very fortunate I had my teammates there. I did not have time to do a full bike change, so we needed to sacrifice one man and by chance we may do this. There was a headwind too and, fortunately, a diminished bunch and the race wasn’t going too quick so I acquired again in.”
As soon as there on the finish of the 174.1km stage from Martorell to Molins de Rei, he once more outpaced Cofidis’s French sprinter Bryan Coquard, who’d additionally completed second behind Groves on Thursday.
“I knew that my form was good. I have not been feeling one of the best the final days, however in the present day I felt actually, actually robust,” the Andorra-based Groves stated.
In the meantime, the battle for the general victory between the illustrious pair of Primož Roglič and Remco Evenepoel continued to please, with each battling over valuable bonus seconds in intermediate sprints.
In the end, they cancelled one another out, with three-time Vuelta champ Roglič nonetheless 10 seconds away from world champ Evenepoel going into Sunday’s hilly Montjuic Park finale in Barcelona.
The main Australian stays Giro d’Italia champion Jai Hindley (Bora-hansgrohe), who’s in eighth place, 2 minutes and 7 seconds behind.
Ben O’Connor (AG2R Citroen) is fifteenth at 4:42 and Jack Haig (Bahrain-Victorious) seventeenth at 5:51.
AAP
