In his first stage race with his new Katusha-Alpecin team, Tony Martin took an impressive solo victory on stage 2 of the Volta a la Comunitat Valenciana. The time trial world champion won by 11 seconds over Pim Ligthart (Roompot-Nederlandse Loterij) and Primoz Roglic (LottoNL-Jumbo).
The parcours featured many climbs with an early break trying to stay away on the difficult parcours. On the final climb of the Alto de Montgó David De La Cruz (Quick-Step Floors) launched an attack that was covered by Martin and the German dropped him. With 6km to go to the finish Denia he used his time trial skills to hold off the chasers.
“We received information that Kristoff also won today so we knew we needed to do the same. I’m very happy that in my first road race for Team Katusha-Alpecin that I could get a victory and keep our morale high in the team for the next races,” said Martin.
Volta a la Comunitat Valenciana 2017 – stage 2 results (Alicante – Denia):
| 1 | Tony Martin (Katusha-Alpecin) | 4:44:35 |
| 2 | Pim Ligthart (Roompot – Nederlandse Loterij) | +11” |
| 3 | Primoz Roglic (LottoNl-Jumbo) | ,, |
| 4 | David De La Cruz (Quick-Step Floors) | ,, |
| 5 | Michele Scarponi (Astana) | ,, |
| 6 | Amaro Antunes (W52/FC Porto) | ,, |
| 7 | Nairo Quintana (Movistar) | ,, |
| 8 | Greg Van Avermaet (BMC) | +19” |
| 9 | Philippe Gilbert (Quick-Step Floors) | ,, |
| 10 | Kristian Sbaragli (Dimension Data) | ,, |
General classification after stage 2:
| 1 | Greg Van Avermaet (BMC) | 5:28:11 |
| 2 | Manuel Senni (BMC) | ,, |
| 3 | Ben Hermans (BMC) | ,, |
| 4 | David Lopez (Team Sky) | +21” |
| 5 | Nicolas Roche (BMC) | +37” |
| 6 | David De La Cruz (Quick-Step Floors) | +41” |
| 7 | Philippe Gilbert (Quick-Step Floors) | +49” |
| 8 | Zdenek Stybar (Quick-Step Floors) | ,, |
| 9 | Daniel Martin (Quick-Step Floors) | ,, |
| 10 | Nairo Quintana (Movistar) | +54” |
