Fabio Jakobsen fastest on stage 2 of Volta a la Comunitat Valenciana
Remco Evenepoel held onto the overall lead with a 19-second margin.
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Fabio Jakobsen (Quick-Step Alpha Vinyl) sprinted to the stage 2 win at the 2022 Volta a la Comunitat Valenciana.
Sebastian Molano (UAE Team Emirates) and Elia Viviani (Ineos Grenadiers) also battled for the win in a big bunch sprint, but it was the “Wolfpack” that took a second win in as many days.
Remco Evenepoel (Quick-Step Alpha Vinyl) finished seventh and held on to a 19-second overall lead.
After getting over two category 3 climbs, two category 2 climbs, and then a final cat 3 climb, the final 10km was mostly downhill until the final, short uphill push to the line.
American Ben King (Human Powered Health) and teammate and U.S. national champion Joey Rosskopf were early instigators along with Mathijs Paasschens (Bingoal Pauwels Sauces WB), Sergio Román Martín (Caja Rural-Seguros RGA), Iván Cobo (Equipo Kern Pharma), and Xabier Mikel Azparren (Euskaltel-Euskadi).
This group stretched an advantage to four minutes before the chase after them was on, lead by Quick-Step Alpha Vinyl with help from Israel-Premier Tech.
With 25km to go barely half a minute separated the front of the race from the big bunch, but an ascent of the Calicanto remained. The break was finally absorbed at 17km to go.
Dylan Teuns (Bahrain Victorious) appeared the first one to animate the climb and the following descent.
David Dekker (Jumbo–Visma) missed a sharp turn and tumbled over the edge of the road while chasing. He immediately scrambled to his bike and was back on track to the finish.
While Teuns was going full-gas, he was not able to hold the sprinters’ teams back, who were lining up for the fastmen.
Another crash kept riders on edge, outside of the 3km mark (where riders are awarded the same time if they have an issue and are outside of the main group).
While Evenepoel was the first into the final kilometer, it was his teammate Jakobsen who was set up for the sprint.
Alexander Kristoff (Intermarché-Wanty-Gobert Matériaux) opened the mass rush to the line, but was overpowered by Jakobsen, riding away in the closing meters.
With two stage wins and the overall lead, Quick-Step Alpha Vinyl riders were in good spirits, despite the crashes and dust.
Notables who did not start stage two were Einer Rubio (Movistar Team) and Christopher Juul-Jensen (Team BikeExchange-Jayco), as well as Juri Hollmann (Movistar Team) and Stephen Williams (Bahrain-Victorious).
Following his opening stage win, Evenepoel was critical of the race organization’s attention road conditions on the final three kilometers of stage 4 Saturday, which takes on narrow, gravel roads.
“We didn’t believe we were going to turn into such a bad gravel road with some really big rocks, so we thought it was a mistake in the GPS, but it doesn’t look like it was a mistake. We’ll have a nice mountain bike stage,” Evenepoel said following his stage 1 win.
Evenepoel’s comments were generally dismissed by race organizers.
Stage 3 Friday is 155.1km, from Alicante to Antenas del Maigmó, and is a stage for the climbers, finishing atop a 10km climb, with ramps exceeding 10.5 percent grade, after already taking on two category 2 and three category 3 climbs along the way.
2022 Volta a la Comunitat Valenciana stage 2 Results
- Fabio Jakobsen (Quick-Step Alpha Vinyl) 04:09:51
- Sebastian Molano (UAE Team Emirates), at s.t.
- Elia Viviani (Ineos Grenadiers), at s.t.
- Matej Mohoric (Bahrain Victorious), at s.t.
- Alexander Kristoff (Intermarché-Wanty-Gobert Matériaux), at s.t.
- Luca Mozzato (B&B Hotels-KTM), at s.t.
- Remco Evenepoel (Quick-Step Alpha Vinyl Team), at s.t.
- Andrea Pasqualon (Intermarché-Wanty-Gobert Matériaux), at s.t.
- Laurenz Rex (Bingoal Pauwels Sauces WB), at s.t.
- Jesus Ezquerra (Burgos-BH), at s.t.
2022 Volta a la Comunitat Valenciana General Classification
- Remco Evenepoel (Quick-Step Alpha Vinyl Team), 8:26:13
- Aleksandr Vlasov (BORA-hansgrohe), at :19
- Carlos Rodriguez (Ineos Grenadiers), at :37