Julien Simon (Saur-Sojasun) held off Team Sky rider Rigoberto Urán to take a narrow victory on stage five of the Volta a Catalunya.
Frenchman claims narrow win in stage five of Volta a Catalunya
Julien Simon (Saur-Sojasun) held off Team Sky rider Rigoberto Urán to take a narrow victory on stage five of the Volta a Catalunya.
The Frenchman just managed to cross the line first as Urán, who was chasing a second straight stage win, started to draw level with him in the dying stages.
Meanwhile, Michael Albasini (GreenEDGE) moved a step closer to overall victory after coming home safely in the lead group at the end of the 207 kilometre trip from Asco to Manresa.
Several riders had tried to distance him both on the final climb and the descent into the finish, but Albasini held firm to maintain his comfortable advantage of 1 minute 32 seconds in the overall standings.
A breakaway of six riders formed 90km into the stage, with Mathias Frank (BMC), Kristof Vandewalle (Omega Pharma-Quickstep), Chris Anker Sorensen (Saxo Bank), Tomasz Marczynski (Vacansoleil-DCM), Marcos Garcia (Caja Rural) and Nicolas Edet (Cofidis) breaking free of the peloton.
Attacks
At the foot of the first category Alt de Montserrat, Sylvester Szmyd (Liquigas-Cannondale) launched a series of attacks from the main group to try and crack Albasini, but the Swiss rider was able to hang tough.
Urán then put in an attack of his own and initially only Jurgen van den Broeck (Lotto-Belisol) was able to follow, but the duo were eventually caught by the chasing pack.
Another move containing Van den Broeck, Robert Kiserlovski (Astana) and Nairo Quintana (Movistar) then broke clear but again the peloton reeled them in before the summit.
Up ahead Sorensen, who was already wearing the climber's jersey, took maximum points at the summit to extend his lead in the mountains competition.
The break of the day was finally caught on the descent and despite a brave downhill attack from Samuel Sanchez (Euskaltel-Euskadi), the bunch came back together again for a sprint into the finish.
On the short kick up to the line, Simon led the sprint out and held on by the narrowest of margins as a strong Urán started to come around him just too late.
