Pierre Rolland

While the classics have gotten underway, the Volta Ciclista a Catalunya offers further opportunity for grand tour GC racers to build form.

It’s a sad fact that this Spanish race is often forgotten in the aftermath of the Milano-San Remo monument, but its importance is just as valid for the rest of the season.

This year the race has a high quality field that is suited to its hilly parcours and it will offer a kind of racing more akin to that we’ve seen at Paris-Nice and especially Tirreno-Adriatico.

The Contenders

Chris Froome – The 2013 Tour de France winner has returned following his back injury and will be looking to get his preparations back on track following his withdrawal from Tirreno-Adriatico. The best stage racer of last year, it will be interesting to gauge his form against that of Tour rival Alberto Contador.

Alberto Contador – El Pistolero is perhaps the favourite for this year’s edition with his dominant win in the Tirreno-Adriatico against a very strong lineup. Contador is a rider that excels when the parcours is mountainous, but even more so when confidence is high. His dispatching of Movistar’s Nairo Quintana last week will have fanned those flames of belief.

Dan Martin – The Irishman enters this year’s race as defending champion. With this year’s Giro d’Italia on his schedule due to the Grande Partenza, it is likely the Volta will provide vital preparation for him. Mostly absent so far this season, his form is largely unknown at this stage.

Carlos Betancur – The Paris-Nice winner enters this race on a high and moving towards a more competitive ‘race weight’. Already regarded as a top climber thanks to his performance at last year’s Giro, Betancur has proved his underlying form is good, however it remains to be seen how he tackles bigger ramps.

Joaquim Rodriguez – The Spaniard has had a low-key start to the season, this being his first WorldTour race since last year’s Il Lombardia in the autumn of 2013. That race confirmed him as the world number one on the WorldTour rankings list, so he’s definitely a force to be reckoned with should he be selected, but he is traditionally a late bloomer in terms of form.

The Race

The Volta is known for it’s hilly parcours that takes in many significant climbs; 25 of them in fact. Significantly, the race has two summit finishes in stages three and four up to La Molina and the hors catégorie Vallter 2000-Setcases respectively, and it’s here that the GC contenders will be making their move. Our ‘contenders’ list notwithstanding, we could witness attacks from Chris Horner, Nairo Quintana, Sammy Sanchez, Tejay Van Garderen and Pierre Rolland as the race shakes out.

The danger of course is that the race might stagnate because the roads are so well known – if riders don’t live in nearby Girona, they’ll visit regularly for training camps because of the variety and quality of roads in the area. But the organisers have gone to great lengths to throw in second and first-category climbs followed by descents to stage finishes, encouraging attacks to animate the race and help riders steal time on their rivals.

Thrown into the mix too is a ‘sprinters’ stage on stage five, while the race finishes in Catalonia’s capital Barcelona. It promises to be an exciting race to add contrast to the classics season.