The leading group of the day consisted of four riders. The peloton gave them an advantage of no more than five minutes. On the toughest climb of the day, the Santa Fe del Montseny, the pace was kept high by a number of teams with classification ambitions. Partly because of this, the last fugitive of the group was caught at 50 kilometres from the finish.

The course situation then lent itself to new attacks. George Bennett and Chris Harper, among others, tried to get away from the peloton, but they were unable to stay ahead. A quartet was finally allowed to sprint for the day’s victory. Andreas Kron proved to be the strongest and will start tomorrow’s time trial in the leader’s jersey.

Sports director Merijn Zeeman was also happy that Team Jumbo-Visma got through the first stage without too much effort. “The other teams took control of the race today. In the beginning of the race it was BORA who led the peloton. Then Movistar decided to ride in front and the pace went up quickly. Fortunately everyone from our team finished in the first group and the conclusion is that we have come through this first day well. Now we have to focus on tomorrow’s time trial and make sure our GC riders give a good performance.”