Astana ProTeam's Gregaard spends Volta Ciclista a Catalunya Stage 2 in breakaway

NUR-SULTAN. KAZINFORM - Astana's neo-pro Jonas Gregaard Wilsly spent a solid day in the breakaway at the second stage of the Volta Ciclista a Catalunya. Jonas went away quite immediately after the start of the stage in Mataró together with two more riders, Kazinform has learnt from the club's press service.

Working hard in front, the breakaway could get over 7 minutes of advantage, but, anyway, with around 26 km to go on the slopes of the last climb of the day Gregaard Wilsly as well as his breakaway companions all were caught back by the main group.

"I am happy with this stage and I can say I've got some fun today. It was a pleasure for me to go in a break, since I know very well all these roads. I live in Girona and today's roads are, normally, my training roads. It was fun to ride on these roads in conditions of a WorldTour race. Of course, it was a hard day with a lot of head wind. In the break we did all we could to stay in front as long as possible, but with all this wind it was quite hard. Anyway, it was a good day for me" said Jonas Gregaard Wilsly.

After the breakaway was caught, nobody of the riders could escape again, thus, everything in this stage ended with a powerful uphill sprint on the streets of Sant Feliu de Guíxols, won by the Australian Michael Matthews. Astana's Merhawi Kudus finished 17th, while team's leader Miguel Angel Lopez ended the stage safety inside the peloton.

Yesterday winner Thomas De Gendt still leads the race in the overall classification.

Tomorrow will be held the third stage of the Volta a Catalunya: it will be the first mountain stage of the race with a total distance of 179 km from Sant Feliu de Guíxols to the top of the special category climb Vallter 2000.