Volta a Catalunya stage 6: Tadej Pogačar once again untouchable on Queen stage

Tadej Pogačar (UAE Team Emirates) won his third stage of the week on Saturday at the Volta a Catalunya, attacking on the penultimate climb of the Queen stage to win from a 30km solo move.

After his UAE Team Emirates squad had set a fierce pace all day, the race leader attacked near the bottom of the penultimate, 5km climb, and almost immediately put in a gap that none of his rivals could even begin to close.

Mikel Landa (Soudal Quick-Step) and Egan Bernal (Ineos Grenadiers) valiantly chased behind the Slovenian, keeping within around a minute of the leader to somewhat limit their losses.

On the line, the pair finished 56 seconds down on Pogačar with Bernal taking second just ahead of Landa, enough to move onto the podium ahead of Enric Mas (Movistar), who finished fourth.

Vuelta a España winner Sepp Kuss (Visma-Lease a Bike) was one of the day's biggest victims, struggling early and finishing some four minutes down on Pogačar.

“Today was a really hard stage,” Pogačar said at the finish. “We controlled from the start pretty good, but then on the long climb, Visma-Lease a Bike tried to set a harder pace and it was super hard. On the top it was only 10 riders and we were quite well [represented] with Marc Soler and João [Almeida], so we set the pace until the bottom of the next climb.

“The group came back and Movistar tried to attack there, so I just launched there. I saw some people followed but I said ‘okay, I’ll go to the top’ and the rest is history, solo to the descent, and I took a bit of care. The final climb was really nice with all the people, but I was suffering a lot.”

The Slovenian now leads the overall by a fairly unassailable 3:31 over Landa, with Bernal in third at 4:53.

A challenging Queen stage in the Catalonian hills

Stage 6 of the Volta a Catalunya offered up probably the hardest challenge of the race so far, featuring five categorised climbs packed into 155km, including the HC Coll de Pradell, and a summit finish at Queralt.

The road went up almost as soon as the flag was dropped and wouldn’t flatten out much for the rest of the day, but it didn’t take long for an early attack to stick. Hugh Carthy (EF Education-EasyPost) and Bauke Mollema (Lidl-Trek) attacked within the first 2km of racing, and quick established a gap, working well together as they approached the first climb. At the top of the climb, Carthy and Mollema led by a minute and a half, with the peloton offering them a gap but one they very much kept under control.

The situation remained stable onto the next climb, with the peloton seemingly happy to keep it calm ahead of the big climbing challenges to come. Over the top of the Collet de Cal Ros, the gap started to come down, as the peloton began to wind up for the Coll de Pradell.

On the early slopes of the 14.6km climb, Mollema sat up and let himself be reabsorbed by the peloton, whilst Carthy pushed on, but he was soon caught too, rejoining the bunch with 72km to go, and 12.5km left of the climb.

UAE Team Emirates and Visma-Lease a Bike were sharing the task of pacing on the front of the bunch, with Pogačar a looming presence within the first few riders. With 5km to go on the climb, Esteban Chaves (EF Education-EasyPost) was the first rider to attack, but didn’t get particularly far before UAE brought him back. Though there wasn’t much action at the front, the high pace on the climb was rapidly shrinking the peloton, with tens of riders being distanced out the back. Fewer than 20 riders remained in the front group with still 2km to go to the top.

The first big name to find himself in trouble was Sepp Kuss, who appeared to struggle to the pace set by his own Visma-Lease a Bike teammates up front. A heavily reduced group crested the top of the climb, including the likes of Pogačar, Egan Bernal, Lenny Martínez, Mikel Landa and Chris Harper, but no one from Visma-Lease a Bike after they dropped back to Kuss.

On the descent, the lead group quickly pulled out a minute over the chasers, led by Visma-Lease a Bike with 50km to go. They were working hard, with some help from Israel-Premier Tech, and halved the gap in 10km, before rejoining the lead with just over 30km to go, just in time for the next climb, the Collada de Sant Isidre (5km at 8.6%).

The large regrouping didn’t last for long, because as soon as the climb started and the pace upped, many riders were in trouble once again. With 3km still to climb, Pogačar put in his first attack of the day, almost immediately getting a gap over all of his rivals – and one that, expectedly, would not be closed for the rest of the day.

By the top of the climb, Pogačar had half a minute on solo chaser Mikel Landa, with Egan Bernal another 30 seconds behind. With 15km to go, Landa and Bernal joined up, around 50 seconds adrift of Pogačar, whilst the main chase group floundered two minutes down on the leader. Enric Mas (Movistar) tried to bridge from the chasers to Landa and Bernal, chasing a podium place, but couldn’t quite make the junction, languishing between the groups for the final 10km.

In the final kilometres, the police motorbikes navigating the thick crowds briefly held Pogačar up, but it was nowhere near enough to threaten his lead, and he eased over the line with almost a minute to play with to celebrate his third victory of the week. Bernal claimed second ahead of Landa, holding off Mas by enough to move into third overall, whilst Mas slipped down to fifth behind Aleksandr Vlasov (Bora-Hansgrohe).