Samuel Dumoulin (Cofidis) took his second victory of this year’s Volta a Catalunya, winning the final stage between Parets del Vallès and Barcelona. The punchy French sprinter beat Rigoberto Uran (Team Sky) and Kenny Dehaes (OmegaPharma-Lotto) into second and third at the end of the short, 124.5km stage.
The race began without overnight second place Levi Leipheimer (RadioShack), who was too sick to start.
The short but hilly stage began immediately with a steady climb and, despite the high speed, a group of 13 riders managed to get off the front. The group included race leader Alberto Contador (Saxo Bank-SunGard), who was anxious not to get caught out on the tricky stage.
Behind them, a crash involving Brent Bookwalter (BMC Racing), Guillaume Bonnafond (AG2R La Mondiale), Julian Dean (Garmin-Cervélo) and Tomasz Marczynski (CCC Polsat-Polkowice) among others, split the peloton in two. Among those caught behind in the second part of the peloton, which trailed by 35 seconds, were Ivan Basso (Liquigas-Cannondale) and third-place Michele Scarponi (Lampre-ISD).
As the main field passed through the start town of Parets del Vallès for a second time after 28km though, it all came back together again with the two halves of the peloton reuniting and the breakaway group was pulled back.
After 44km though, as the peloton passed through Cerdanyola del Vallès, a group of five riders tried to get away; they were immediately neutralised by the peloton but, shortly afterwards, six riders managed to get clear.
Stefan Denifl (Leopard Trek), Carlos Barredo (Rabobank), Jan Bakelants (OmegaPharma-Lotto), Xabier Zandio (Team Sky), Mathieu Perget (AG2R La Mondiale) and Thomas Rohregger (Leopard Trek) managed to pull out an advantage of 1’35” in the next 10km; the Lampre-ISD team took control of the peloton at this point though and stabilised the lead to around a minute, where it would remain for the next 50km.
As the race entered the four 5.1km Barcelona finishing circuits Contador’s Saxo Bank-SunGard team came forward to help Lampre-ISD and the gap to the leaders fell to 40 seconds; as the group crossed the line with one lap remaining it have been cut to just 15 seconds and it’s time would apparently soon be up.
With 3km to go the Movistar team moved forward on behalf of stage 6 winner José Joaquin Rojas, and the break was caught as they entered the final kilometre. Just as he had been in Friday’s fifth stage though, it was Dumoulin that proved the fastest, with Uran and Dehaes taking the other podium places.
Alberto Contador (Saxo Bank-SunGard) finished safely in the peloton once more to confirm his victory in the week-long race. In the absence of Leipheimer, Scarponi moves up into second place and Dan Martin (Garmin-Cervélo) steps up onto the third step of the podium.