Fernando Gaviria (Quick-Step Floors) claimed his first European victory of the season, playing off a late attack by teammate Max Richeze to take out the stage and first leader's jersey of the Volta ao Algarve.
Katusha, Cofidis and Lotto Soudal battled for the lead in the final kilometers, but Quick-Step kept its powder dry, sitting back until they were inside the last 300m.
Richeze launched an early attack, burning up the Cofidis lead-out for Nacer Bouhanni. Bouhanni started his sprint early but faded to third, while Gaviria sat on Andre Greipel's wheel and when Gaviria surged with 150m to go the German could not quite get past.
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"I am very happy, because I just came back from Colombia, where I worked really well, and this win shows this," Gaviria said. "It was a royal sprint, with some of the world’s fastest riders fighting for victory, and to beat them is really nice, especially as the wind was pretty strong out there. A big thanks to the team, because they were perfect and did a superb job today."
Gaviria also revealed that he had special motivation to win the stage: "Yesterday I made a bet with Davide Bramati, who promised that if I win a stage here, then I get green light to line up at the National Championships on February 26th. I'm delighted to have won this bet and get the ticket for Colombia. It would be a huge pride to wear this beautiful jersey at least once in my career and I hope it will happen this year."
How it happened
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