Defending champion Primoz Roglic won stage one of the Vuelta a Espana on Tuesday after outsprinting an elite group that had survived the steep final 5km climb to Alto de Arrate.

Team Ineos had set the pace up most of the climb and their leader Richard Carapaz was second, while Irishman Dan Martin of Israel Start-Up Nation finished third.

Roglic used his trademark late kick in the final 500m to open a gap of just a few seconds for a comfortable win that puts him in the race leader’s red jersey.

The Vuelta set off almost two months late from Irun instead of from the Netherlands as originally planned, with few fans in attendance for a 173km rolling run through the Basque Country.

 

Continue reading this article on Sports Desk, the new sports website by Times of Malta

Sign up to our free newsletters

Get the best updates straight to your inbox:
Please select at least one mailing list.

You can unsubscribe at any time by clicking the link in the footer of our emails. We use Mailchimp as our marketing platform. By subscribing, you acknowledge that your information will be transferred to Mailchimp for processing.