Remco Evenepoel remains the benchmark in time trials at the Volta Valencia. The world champion secured his third individual victory of the season on stage 2 and – following Finn Fisher-Black’s win of the New Zealand time trial jersey early in the morning – the sixth for Red Bull – BORA – hansgrohe in this year.
Aleksandr Vlasov also achieved a strong result, finishing second, just eight seconds behind Remco after 17.5 kilometers.
Due to strong winds, the jury and race organizers, in consultation with the teams, decided that the competition should be held on normal road bikes and that the times would not count towards the overall classification. However, a stage victory was still up for grabs. This made it possible to minimize risk.
There was still a stage win to grab and I also wanted to respect the organisation. They decided to keep the race go for a stage result and I decided to do a race. We also need to be real sportsmen in our minds and be ready for flexibility as well. For me it was not a big difference because I know I can also ride pretty fast on a normal bike. We decided to race for the victory and I think it was a good decision.
Aleks and I are in first and second place today, which is a pretty good result for us. We prepared all day like it was a normal TT day. It was a good test with a nice result.
— Remco Evenepoel
