Barbier sprints to stage 1 victory at Vuelta a San Juan

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Rudy Barbier (Israel Start-Up Nation) sprang a surprise on stage 1 of the Vuelta a San Juan in Argentina on Sunday when he emerged victorious from a breathless bunch sprint ahead of Manuel Belletti (Androni-Sidermec), while Deceuninck-QuickStep star Remco Evenepoel initially saw his general classification hopes suffer a significant blow when he came down in a crash with a little over three kilometres remaining and conceded more than a minute in the process, but later had his time losses annulled by the race jury.

The largely flat opening leg appeared to be ambling towards its predicted conclusion – a skirmish among the sprint grandees on the start list – only for the mass crash on the outskirts of San Juan to sprinkle the closing kilometres with a seasoning of chaos. 

Peter Sagan (Bora-Hansgrohe), Alvaro Hodeg (Deceuninck-QuickStep) and Fernando Gaviria (UAE Team Emirates) were all in the front group at the finish, but although the pre-stage favourites each had support in the final kilometre, none of them made the expected impact in the ensuing sprint.

On what was his 30th birthday, Sagan had to settle for sixth place, just behind Hodeg, while Gaviria sat up before crossing the line in ninth. Immediately after the finish, the UAE Team Emirates rider held an impromptu debrief with Sagan, before they both rode back to their hotel, leaving Barbier to the interminable podium ceremony. Their disappointment at a flat start to their campaign was evident, but the week is long, and so is the season.

The evening instead belonged to Barbier, who produced a fine turn of speed to come off Belletti's shoulder within sight of the line to claim only the fifth victory of his career and his biggest since he landed Paris-Bourges in 2017. At 27 years of age, the Frenchman will hope his triumph is an augury for better things to come.

"It's a great start to the season," Barbier said. "This is a very important victory for me and for the whole team. The best sprinters in the world are in San Juan, so to win here is incredible for me."

Another Frenchman, Julian Alaphilippe, was prominent in the closing stages as he tried to tee up Hodeg for the sprint, and his pedalling here suggested that he might not be far off the mark in Tuesday's time trial, even if he sat up and eventually crossed the line 14 seconds down on Barbier.

For Alaphilippe's Deceuninck-QuickStep teammate Evenepoel, the road to overall victory appeared rather more complicated after his crash, which also saw Christophe Laporte (Cofidis) among the fallers. The Belgian youngster crossed the line with a scuffed jersey and abrasions on his arms. He reported no lasting consequences after the finish, but he came home 1:16 down, more than a minute down on his main rivals.

Oscar Sevilla (Medellin), third overall a year ago, crossed the line just behind Evenepoel, while home favourite Eduardo Sepulveda (Movistar) conceded more than five minutes after he was caught up in the incident.

However, hours after the finish, the race organisers sent out a press release confirming that the time losses incurred by those riders caught up in, or delayed by, the crash would be annulled.

"After the crash on the first stage of the Vuelta a San Juan, which happened 3.5km from the finish line, and after watching a video that clearly shows that the crash was provoked by a spectator when they touched the handlebars of a rider, the Commissaires Panel has taken the decision of giving the same time to all the riders that were in the bunch at the moment of the crash," read the release from Miguel Echezortu, President of the Commissaires Panel.

How it unfolded

The raucous music on the start line in front of San Juan's civic centre stopped only once on Sunday afternoon – just long enough for a local priest to issue a blessing to the assembled peloton over the public address, casting holy water in their direction from his position on the rostrum. 

At the rear of the peloton, meanwhile, Peter Sagan and Remco Evenepoel lined up side by side and exchanged birthday greetings before the flag dropped. Sagan turned 30 on Sunday, while Evenepoel had celebrated his 20th birthday 24 hours earlier. The Slovak was reporting for his 11th season in the professional peloton, while Evenepoel was embarking on only his second.

The demands of live television coverage meant that stage start was at 4pm, although the intense summer sunshine had scarcely abated by late afternoon. The peloton set out amid temperatures of 34°C, and although the shadows would lengthen considerably before they returned to San Juan 100 miles later, it took a little longer for the mercury to drop noticeably. 

Nine riders forged clear in the opening part of the stage, and they were allowed to build a maximum lead just north of two minutes before the WorldTour teams set about pegging them back, with UAE Team Emirates, Deceuninck-QuickStep and Bora-Hansgrohe forming a loose alliance at the head of the peloton to ensure that the day would end in a mass sprint on Avenida José Ignazio de la Roza.

The three ascents of the Alto Punta Negra around the middle of the stage saw the front group gradually whittled down to six riders, with Daniel Juarez (Agrupacion Virgen De Fatima), Vinicius Rangel (Brazil), Andrea Di Renzo (Vini Zabu-KTM), Iker Ballarin (Fundacion-Orbea), Mattia Bais (Androni-Sidermec) and Filippo Zaccanti (Bardiani-CSF-Faizané) the only men able to keep pace with Cesar Paredes (Medellin), who did enough to move into the king of the mountains jersey. 

With 40km remaining, the sextet's lead had dropped inside 40 seconds, and they would be swept up shortly afterwards. With a risk of crosswinds in the finale, Deceuninck-QuickStep's presence at the front was an unnerving one for some, but the anticipated split never materialised. Instead, it was the crash with 3.4km remaining that splintered the field, and provided – at least initially – some unexpectedly early definition to the overall standings.

The race jury decision to cancel those time losses, however, means that the GC remains wide open after all, and for now it's Rudy Barbier at the head of affairs going into stage 2.

Results

General classification