Caja Rural-Seguros RGA kicks off the first linear stage by being present in the escape and making it onto the podium.

Jose Gonçalves (Caja Rural-Seguros RGA) was one of the day’s main players, breaking away along with Nelson Oliveira (Lampre-Merida), Davide Villella (Cannondale-Garmin), Walter Pedraza (Team Colombia), Bert Jan Lindeman (LottoNL-Jumbo) and Matteo Montaguti (Ag2r La Mondiale).

Gonçalves tried his luck on his own, launching an attack 16 km from the finish-line, but the peloton caught up to him 10 km before the end. It is a great start for the Portuguese rider who completed an amazing Volta Portugal just a few days ago.

His fellow Portuguese countryman, Ricardo Vilela, was the first member of the Caja Rural-Seguros RGA team to cross the finish-line.

José Gonçalves, who in the first stage made it onto the podium as the winner of the Combativity Award, said upon arriving at the finish-line:

“I felt very good, I tried my luck in the team time trial and had a good feeling and the same happened in today’s stage. It was complicated for the escape to happen in the first stage, but I had to try, and I did the final 16km on my own, it was tough, but you never know unless you try. To make it onto the podium in the first stage of the Vuelta is something to be happy about, although I won’t settle for this, I want to try to achieve a victory, but we’ll take it day by day and see how we go.”