Alejandro Valverde of Movistar has won the second stage of the Volta Ciclista a Catalunya.
After a day where the break was allowed to succeed and Maciej Paterski of CCC Sprandi to take a win which saw him with a lead over two minutes over the peloton, stage two was 191.8km and from Mataro to Olot.
Four riders in Sam Bewley of Orica GreenEdge, Tsgabu Grmay of Lampre, Luis Mas of Caja Rural and Tom Stamsnijder of Giant Alpecin got away early and were 3.45 clear after sixteen kilometres.
That lead of 3.45 was still the same as they approached the halfway point with all four taking turns to keep them comfortably aheadIt dropped to 2.31 after 110kms of racing on a day when the weather was so bad that the helicopters could not take off and beam back live pictures.
With seventy kilometres to go, the gap had gone down to two minutes and fifty kilometres later, only Grmay and Mas were left up front.
Mas attacked but both were brought back, which set up a bunch sprint that was won by Alejandro Valverde of Movistar in 5.02.49 ahead of team mate JJ Rojas and Martin Elmiger of IAM Cycling, followed by Hivert, Kelderman, Simon, Prades, Silvestre, Kochetkov and Malacarne.
Source: DSG
