EF Education-EasyPost leader set for battle with Giro rivals Roglič, Ayuso, Landa, Yates twins in Spain
Richard Carapaz (right) in action at the Volta a Catalunya(Image credit: Getty Images)
So far, if it wasn't for a broken wheel late on stage 1, you could be forgiven for not realising Olympic and Giro d'Italia champion Richard Carapaz is racing the Volta a Catalunya. But that could well be about to change.
The EF Education-EasyPost racer and the rest of the Volta peloton are about to begin two days of high-mountain racing. First, on Wednesday, they will race in the Pyrenees with the often-used summit finish ascent at La Molina, followed by the little-known but daunting first-category climb to Montserrat to end stage 4 on Thursday.
Like multiple Giro d'Italia favourites, Carapaz is currently using the Volta to build his form for May. He's joined at the race by the Yates twins, Primož Roglič, Mikel Landa, and Juan Ayuso, among others. However, it's also notable that in this season, he's raced more than any of them.
He's racked up 17 race days after starting his campaign at the partly cancelled Étoile de Bessèges. He followed that up with two more races in France before taking on Strade Bianche, Tirreno-Adriatico and Milano-Torino.
None of the results have been exceptional so far, with a ninth place in the Tour des Alpes-Maritimes his best to date. However, he's ridden consistently and is currently lying 16th in the Volta, well within striking distance of the top positions on GC.
"He's looking pretty good. He was pretty good in Tirreno, and he's probably stepped up a little bit since then. He would have a boost from the previous races. We have high hopes, but we'll have to wait and see," EF directeur sportif Tejay van Garderen told Cyclingnews earlier this week.
"We're not putting a number on it. This is all in preparation for his Giro. It's important that he fights each day with the GC group and can gauge himself and measure himself. But the ultimate goal for him is the Giro."
Carapaz chats with Volta and Giro rival Mikel Landa in Catalunya (Image credit: Getty Images)
The stage 1 incident, which saw Carapaz awarded the same time as the lead group after getting delayed by his broken wheel, was a straightforward enough incident. Van Garderen was unable to get through to him from the team car because of the barrage, he recounted.
"Fortunately, he was smart enough to let the commissaires know he had a bust wheel," Van Garderen added.
In any case, EF are now looking ahead to the two upcoming mountain stages and running the rule over Carapaz's form in the crunch climbing tests that are about to take place.
The Ecuadorian has shone in past editions of Catalunya, taking second in 2022, but as Van Garderen says, this is all about Italy. A third participation at Liège-Bastogne-Liège is set to be his only other racing appointment on the road to the Grande Partenza.
"The winner of Catalunya isn't necessarily the winner of the Giro, but it can obviously give you a gauge of what you need to work on," he said. "Say if he's strong in the beginning but falters in the end, you might need to work more on his endurance base. I'm not saying that's the problem at all, but you have to run him through the tests and see what you can gather from it."
In the here and now, the peloton returns on Wednesday to a climb Van Garderen knows very well, having won at La Molina in the 2015 Volta a Catalunya. Then, the race goes on to Monserrat on Thursday, which is much more of a voyage in the dark for the entire race, given it was last tackled in 1995.
"Catalunya visits La Molina often, so the guys will be familiar with it. They'll know how to gauge their effort," Van Garderen said.
As for whether he'll use memories of his own success story on La Molina and the details of the climb to help guide the EF riders and Carapaz in particular, Van Garderen concluded with a grin, "I might give them a little reminder when we get there tomorrow."
"[But] you have to take these climbs individually and grab every opportunity you can; if you lose time, you don't get it back, the clock never stops," Van Garderen, also a Pyrenean stage winner in the Volta a Catalunya at Vallter 2000 in 2014, argues.
"Wednesday is very hard throughout – 218km long and 5,000 metres of vertical climbing in March – that's definitely good Monument training!"
Alasdair Fotheringham has been reporting on cycling since 1991. He has covered every Tour de France since 1992 bar one, as well as numerous other bike races of all shapes and sizes, ranging from the Olympic Games in 2008 to the now sadly defunct Subida a Urkiola hill climb in Spain. As well as working for Cyclingnews, he has also written for The Independent, The Guardian, ProCycling, The Express and Reuters.
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