Volta Ciclista a Catalunya Stage 7: Uran Finishes 5th GC
Etixx - Quick-Step rider Rigoberto Uran confirmed a 5th place GC finish after placing 7th in the 126.6km Volta Ciclista a Catalunya Stage 7 on Sunday, as the race came back together with 13.5km to go and ended in a bunch finish.
Alejandro Valverde (Movistar) won the stage, and Richie Porte (Team Sky) won the overall. Uran contested the sprint after being well protected by his team all day.
Bryan Coquard (Europcar) was 2nd in the group arrival, and Sergei Chernetski (Katusha) was 3rd.
Gianluca Brambilla also finished 10th in the stage.
Etixx - Quick-Step finished 2nd in three different stages: Uran in Stages 3 and 5, and Julian Alaphilippe in Stage 6.
"We were really full gas today, from the start until the finish line," Uran said. "We tried to do something to maybe help me move up in the overall classification, but the speed in the local circuit was too high, so we focused on defending out position. The team was strong around me and I'm happy with their great support today.. Considering my 5th place finish in the GC, I was also 3rd at Tirreno-Adriatico. So for me these results are in line with my progress at this point of the year. When compared to last year this is a completely different situation. I maybe had one situation in the queen stage where in the last kilometer I missed my chance to be on the overall podium. But it is like that in cycling, where the race can be decided in a brief moment. I think we did a great job as a team and we can come out of this race satisfied. Now I go back to Colombia to recover and then I will begin training. I want to train in the mountains but also on my time trial bike. Then I will come back to Europe for Tour de Romandie and I will ride this race in function of the Giro d'Italia, the big objective of my year. As a team we believe we are in good way to do something good for the next months. We have to keep working hard and do our best to keep up this good momentum."
Keep up to date on our social media channel