Volta a la Comunitat Valenciana stage 1: Alessandro Tonelli wins from early breakaway ahead of teammate

Alessandro Tonelli (VF Group-Bardiani CSF-Faizanè) won stage 1 of the Volta a la Comunitat Valenciana ahead of his teammate Manuele Tarozzi, after the teammates attacked from the early breakaway to win ahead of the peloton.

The pair survived a last-minute wrong turn to hold onto their lead and complete a dramatic 1-2 for their Italian ProTeam, and put Tonelli into the race lead.

Third place went to Oier Lazkano (Movistar) who jumped clear of the peloton in the finale after the bunch failed to close down the day's early move before the finish.

After a break got away early in the stage, the seven riders were allowed to build up a surprising nine-minute advantage, which the peloton then failed to close down after appearing to leave it too late to start their chase in earnest.

The leaders started attacking each other on the final climb, which resulted in the Bardiani duo of Tarozzi and Tonelli forging on into the final 20km.

Matej Mohorič (Bahrain Victorious) attempted a characteristic attack on the final descent, and did get away from the reduced peloton, but failed to close down the gap to the leaders before the finish.

Breakaway given big advantage on opening day in Spain

Starting in Benicássim, the first stage of the Volta a Comunitat Valenciana got underway in fairly typical fashion, with the breakaway attacks starting early and a move establishing itself within the first 25km. Also typically, the group was largely made up of Spanish teams, with the seven men in the day’s break being: Gorka Sorarrain (Caja Rural-Seguros RGA), Jetse Bol (Burgos-BH), Francisco Muñoz (Polti Kometa), Alex Molenaar (Illes Balears Arabay Cycling), Iñigo Elosegui (Equipo Kern Pharma), Manuele Tarozzi and Alessandro Tonelli (both VF Group-Bardiani CSF-Faizanè).

The seven leaders worked well together in the early part of the stage, and quickly built up a four-minute lead over the peloton, who seemed happy to take it easy to begin with. The gap continued to grow substantially and was nearing nine minutes at the halfway point of the stage, with the peloton perhaps sitting back a little too much. Sorarrain took both KoMs along the way, and heading into the final 75km the peloton did begin to up the pace.

With 50km to go, the break’s lead still sat at 6:43, as the advantage for the stage started to swing in their direction, though the gap was steadily falling with the final climb still to come. It was Bahrain Victorious who were doing much of the work on the front, with Jayco AlUla sitting back after reports that Michael Matthews was ill, and Bora-Hansgrohe and Lidl-Trek sitting behind Bahrain in the peloton.

The chase’s efforts brought the gap down below four minutes going into the final 30km, as UAE Team Emirates started to get involved, but it was still a fine balance between the peloton and the motivated breakaway. The pace in the peloton was high enough to be dropping riders, so it seemed like they were really turning on the gas to close the gap - a pursuit they perhaps left slightly late. As well as the stage win, though, there was interest in limiting the gap to the leaders for the GC riders, with only small gaps expected in this race.

Going into the final 25km, the breakaway riders started to attack each other on the final climb, with the VF Group-Bardiani CSF-Faizanè duo of Tarozzi and Tonelli leading the proceedings. The Italians were followed by Sorarrain, and the trio convincingly dropped the rest of their breakaway companions, before Sorarrain also dropped off around halfway up the climb.

Behind, the peloton trailed the leaders by three minutes, but their advantage dwindled as a duo, rather than a full seven-rider group, marched onwards. Cresting the top of the climb, Tarozzi and Tonelli had 2:20 - and falling - on the peloton, with only a descent and some flat lying between themselves and the finish line. The peloton was rapidly shrinking as the likes of Bahrain and Bora really set the pace on the front and continued to eat into the leaders’ advantage, and on the descent, Matej Mohorič employed his characteristic attacking descending style to clip off the front of the bunch.

With 10km to go, the leaders were a minute and a half ahead of Mohorič, with the peloton some 20 seconds behind that - a fairly big gap to close on the flat. The pair still had a healthy lead with 5km to go, as the win looked to be in their hands on the run-in to Castellón.

Disaster almost struck the leading duo in the final kilometres as they went the wrong way on a turn, with Tonelli getting caught up in some tape, but thankfully they were back on track quickly and rode towards the finish to win, albeit with a smaller advantage. It was Tonelli who took the win, with Tarozzi celebrating his teammate over the line.

Behind, Oier Lazkano accelerated in the finale to swallow up the final break survivor Alex Molenaar and secure third place just ahead of the Dutchman, as Jonathan Milan (Lidl-Trek) sprinted to fifth from the peloton, which finished 1:09 down on the leaders.

With time bonuses, Tonelli leads the GC by three seconds from Tarozzi 1:17 on Lazkano, and most of the GC favourites sitting 1:32 adrift of the lead going into stage 2.