Gaviria clinches opening stage

Pocito : Fernando Gaviria won the opening stage of the Vuelta a San Juan Sunday with a perfect leadout from his Quick-Step Floors team, which watched as other squads fought for the front inside the final kilometre and then dropped the Colombian sprinter off with 200 metres to go. 

Gaviria took care of business form there, easily distancing the competition at the line. 

Bahrain-Merida’s Niccolo Bonifazio was second, with Bora-Hansgroh’s Matteo Pelucchi in third.

“The sprint was very fast and very complicated because in the final kilometres were a lot of teams that wanted to win, so it was very complicated to try to win this stage,” Gaviria said in the post-race press conference. 

“I was lucky because I have a very strong team, a very big team, and we’ve beaten the other teams in the same conditions, so the sprint was very beautiful and also the victory was very beautiful.”

The field brought the day’s breakaway back with 19km to go and then swept up any further breakaway attempts as teams fought for supremacy over the final 174.km closing circuit.

With two kilometres to go, Bora-Hansgrohe came forward to set up the sprint for Pelucchi, but they weren’t the only team with designs on the stage. UnitedHealthcare briefly shot to to the front with several riders, then it was Lotto Soudal’s turn inside the final kilometre.

But all of the efforts were for naught as Quick-Step was simply biding their time before launching their Colombian speedster to the line.