Luis León Sánchez achieved a top 5 finish on the opening stage of the Volta a la Valenciana with co-leader Matej Mohorič managing to complete the day in 9th. 

The 166,7 km route from Les Alqueiries to Torralba del Pinar was highly contested from the beginning with a five man breakaway, creating roughly a 5 minute distance from the peloton. 

Over time however, the time differential began to reduce and the breakaway was caught by the chasing pack, including Mohorič and Sánchez, as we approached 25km to go. Although valiant efforts were made to remain in the hunt for the podium, the pace was extremely high as the 4.6km-long Torralba del Pinar climb arrived and Evenepoel was able to descend down to the finish in first place.

Luis Sánchez reflects on his first race with Team Bahrain Victorious with optimism and positivity. “Today is the first race in the season. More importantly is the feeling within the team, that we feel really good, especially towards the final climb. The result is not bad and we’ll see [what happens] tomorrow!”

We also caught up with sports director, Neil Stephens, to gather his thoughts on a tough day: 

“We went into the race with high hopes [to achieve a stage win] but the opposition were on another level. We did our job well and correct, and tried everything we had [to get the stage win]. We also have to take away the positives of the stage – the work was great, the attitude was great… so we’ll keep fighting for another day!”