Fabio Jakobsen (Deceuninck – Quick-Step) took his first win of the season on stage 1 of the Volta ao Algarve – at 199.1 kilometers, the longest of this edition, which took the peloton from Portimão to Lagos – following a spectacular sprint.
“It’s amazing to win my first race of the season after all the training in the winter, it’s a perfect start to the year. Both my family and the team supported me, I worked hard for this and it feels great to get a victory against so many strong sprinters and don the first leader’s jersey”, Jakobsen said before heading to the podium ceremony, where he collected two more jerseys – red (points classification) and white (best young rider standings).
As soon as the peloton rolled through the neutralised zone on Wednesday, five riders from local Portuguese Continental teams sparked a move and put around three and a half minutes between them and the pack, which was headed by Tim Declercq, pulling for dozens and dozens of kilometres and making sure the gap remained a stable one.
With two insignificant climbs featuring in the first part of the course, the stage was never going to be a problem for the sprinters’ teams, who slowly made their way to the front of the bunch, bringing back both the original breakaway and the duo who attacked inside the final 40 kilometres, when it became clear that the first move of the day was all but doomed.
A big pile-up in the bunch, which occurred with seven kilometres to go, left only 30-40 riders at the front, Deceuninck – Quick-Step being well-represented there, with the likes of Yves Lampaert and Davide Martinelli, who organised the sprint train and stretched out the field going into the last kilometres. Under the flamme rouge, former Czech Champion Zdenek Stybar ramped up the pace, before Florian Sénéchal took over and provided a flawless lead-out for Fabio Jakobsen.
The Dutchman accelerated some 150 metres from the line, going past Simone Consonni (UAE Team Emirates) and easily holding off the charges of Arnaud Demare (Groupama-FDJ) and Pascal Ackermann (Bora-hansgrohe), who rounded out the podium in Lagos, which hosted a stage finish for the third consecutive year.
“We trained here in the region this year and did a recon of the stage, so we knew the roads and that the small climb inside the final three kilometres was going to be hard and quite crucial. The boys kept the pace high there and protected me, before putting me in a perfect position for the sprint. This result motivates us even more and hopefully our great week will continue”, concluded Jakobsen.
