Vicente Garcia is not a big name in the cycling world, but since signing for Portuguese team Louletano midway through 2014, he has notched up some credible results, like fourth behind Michael Matthews in the Vuleta a la Rioja in 2014, sixth in the Spanish Road Raceand 7th in a stage of the 2014 Vuelta a Castilla y Leon, showing he has a fast finish on hard days. Today he took his first pro win when he came by late attacker Jose Goncalves (Caja Rural) jut 20m from the line and no one could match him after a long 5 hours in the saddle on a lumpy course.

The riders started out on the first road stage of the Volta a Portugal with Gaetan Bille of Verandas Willems in the leaders jersey for a 196.8k trip from Braganca. Weather wise, it was cloudy but dry, but the organisers said that by the feed zone there was a good chance it could be raining from there all the way to the line.

The stage was by no means easy, with a cat 3 and cat 2 climb, although the cat 2 would be climbed with 70km to go. However, there were still a few bumps on the road into and on the finishing circuit of 14km to leave an attacker with a chance.

After just 3km, the first attack went, containing Alberto Gallego of Radio Popular, Bruno Silva of LA Aluminios-Antarte and Hector Saez of Caja Rural. They had 40 seconds on Florian Nowak of Stuttgart and Christopher Hatz of Kuota-Lotto. Meanwhile the bunch sat up and was already 1:35 down.

The lead trio contested the intermediate sprint, where Silva beat Saez and Gallego. After this they slowed up and allowed the two chasing Germans to join them while the bunch followed at just over 4 minutes. Meanwhile, after a crash in the neutral zone, David Livramento of Tavira suffered his second crash as Verandas Willems controlled the pace.

At the top of the third cat climb, Silva beat Hatz, Nowak and Gallego take the points while the bunch followed at 4:45. The gap hovered around 4:30 for a long time after the climb and even went over five minutes, but with arounf 90km to go, Verandas upped the pace and brought the gap down to just 3:30.

Gallego, Silva and Saez decided that they had used up their two German companions and attacked. They instantly had a gap and soon they had left their two former companions over one minute behind with 70km to go. The bunch still sat at 4:45. After the pace had eased.

Silva ensured he would be in the Mountains Jersey tomorrow after he beat Saez and Gallego before Hatz and Nowak came across before Van Zummeren of Verandas Willems led the bunch across. The two Germans were absorbed by the bunch soon after.

Bille suffered a blow as his teammate Daan Myngheer abandoned as the gap came down to 4 minutes with just 50km to go.

At the second intermediate sprint, Saez led Silva and Gallego over the line as they lost another 15 seconds to the bunch, giving them 3:45 over the bunch.

As the gap began to come down, Gallego, who noticeably hadn’t contested any of the sprints or mountain points, attacked at 40km to go and he quickly gained 34 seconds on the break while the peloton were at 2:30 to the Spaniard.

Saez and Silva gave up their chase and were taken back by the peloton with around 30km remaining, and while Gallego maintained his 2:30 gap, the bunch already looked like they would get a sprint at the end.

The ISD Continental team suffered a blow when two of their riders abandoned the race, leaving just six men left to contest the remaining eight stages.

The gap to Gallego was raidly reducing as he began to tire, and he crossed the finish line for the start of the lap of the finishing circuit, meaning he won the final intermediate sprint ahead of Verandas riders Christoph Premont and Joeri Calleeuw. Not long after the bunch crossed the line, Gallego was recaptured.

Now the teams with sprinters came forward and relived Verandas Willems from the front, and local team W52-Quinta de Lixa were setting a high tempo to prevent any attacks from the bunch.

But the pace wasn’t high enough and Fabricio Ferrari launched just 5km from the finish, getting a small gap as Lokosphinx moved to the front to control the pace. While Ferrari’s attack was convincing, he never got the huge gap he was looking for and he was eventually recaptured just outside the flamme rouge.

A Team Idea rider launched right over the top of that on the uphill drag but he couldn’t keep the move going. As soon as he was back, a much stronger move from a Caja Rural rider, Jose Goncalves came and he got a gap. He looked like he had a chance to win the stage but began to die was caught just 20m from the line by the sprint.

In the sprint, Team Idea’s Davide Vigano did a huge sprint to catch Prades and just as he made it into his slipstream, Vicente Garcia of local team Louletano-Ray Just Energy launched his sprint and came by with W52’s sprinter Samuel Caldeira in his wheel. Garcia powered to the win by a wheel length and Vigano had to settle for third behind Caldeira. Bille came thirteenth and easily defended his lead. 

Tomorrow’s stage is a much tougher affair than today’s, with two cat 3 climbs, a cat 2 and a summit finish atop the Serra de Larouco, ranked cat 1. This should ensure that the GC changes hands as Bille is n o mountain goat, but he may surprise. But a GC contender is expected to be in yellow by this time tomorrow.