Mikel Landa keeps his place in the top five overall.
Due to high winds, the penultimate stage of the Volta a Catalunya was changed twice, all the big climbs, including the summit finish in Queralt, being taken out. The peloton got underway from Berga in the afternoon, but it wasn’t clear for anyone how the parcours of the stage would look like and how many kilometers would be raced.
In the end, after talks between the riders and the organisers, the latter decided that only the last 25 kilometers would be raced. In addition to this, the bonus seconds at both the intermediate sprint and the finish were wiped out, and the time was taken at five kilometers to go.
Gianmarco Garofoli was one of the many who tried their luck in the closing kilometers of this unusual stage, the Italian accelerating on a downhill portion to try and open a gap, but the others came back. In the end, it was Quinn Simmons (Lidl-Trek) who rode clear and took the victory in Berga, while the general classification remained unchanged, which means Mikel Landa retained his fourth place ahead of Sunday’s short stage around Barcelona.
Photo credit: ©Szymon Gruchalski / Getty Images
