In the great showdown between the two cycling stars Primoz Roglic and Remco Evenepoel, the Italian Giulio Ciccone won the first mountain finish of the Tour of Catalonia.
The three-time Giro stage winner prevailed on the second section at an altitude of 2,100 meters in Vallter after 165.4 kilometers, just ahead of the Slovenian overall leader Roglic and the Belgian road bike world champion Evenepoel. The tour serves as a form test for the top stars for the Tour of Italy in May. As the best German, Anton Palzer finished 38th, 3:03 minutes behind.
Roglic stays ahead in the overall standings
In the overall standings, Roglic, who won the opening stage, is six seconds ahead of Evenepoel and Ciccone. The Slovenian had won the difficult Tirreno-Adriatico Tour just under a week ago.
There was another violent fall on Tuesday. The Frenchman Kenny Elissonde apparently suffered a serious shoulder injury. The day before, his Italian Trek teammate Dario Cataldo had been taken to the hospital with a broken femur, a broken hip, a broken collarbone, two broken vertebrae, several broken ribs and a collapsed lung.