Vuelta Aragón (st. 1)

Catalan puncheur joins Arcas, Soler, Sepúlveda into final 19-man split, bunch torn apart in last 40km. Queen stage coming up on Saturday towards Canfranc.

French sprinter Justin Jules (WVA) was the fastest at the end of a difficult stage one in the 2019 Vuelta a Aragón, 186km in length from Andorra (Teruel) to Calatayud. The local winds known as ‘cierzo’ punished the field with strong head gusts in the beginning, followed by final crosswinds where the Movistar Team tried to take advantage from their skills to reduce the field of contenders for the overall success.

Two big moves from the Blues -who suffered a costly puncture with local youngster Jaime Castrillo, absent into the final split- left the GC group reduced to barely 19 riders, including Jorge Arcas, Eduardo Sepúlveda, Marc Soler -back here after his Catalunya injury- and Edu Prades, who took 3rd place at the sprint after Jules and fellow countryman Thomas Boudat (TDE).

The Spanish race will head into the mountains on Saturday, as another 186km are covered on the way to Canfranc, through the final climbs of Santa Bárbara (Cat-3), San Juan de la Peña (Cat-2), Oroel (Cat-2) and Somport (Cat-3).

Cover picture (c): Photo Gomez Sport