The Volta a Catalunya sometimes had more snow that it had show – and while the veteran Alejandro Valverde won overall, some young Colombians kept things interesting. It was a week-long stage race with no time trials (!) and none of the A-list sprinters in attendance (!!). I tell you, you will dream about weeks like this come the annual lap around France this summer… mark my words.

Rider of the Race

Step forward Team Sky’s Egan Bernal. He looked very comfortable at Colombia’s wonderful Oro y Paz at the beginning of February and kicked on further here in Catalunya. Remember this was his first European race as a World Tour rider.

On most stages he stayed on point, finishing well up in the bunch. He seemed to have a knack of making sure he was in the right place when it mattered. Stage two ended in a sprint contested by the climbers: Bernal finished fourth ahead of names like Matej Mohoric (Bahrain-Merida), Bob Jungels (Quick-Step) and Warren Barguil (Fortuneo-Samsic). It didn’t even look like he was trying that hard.

Bernal was most impressive on the fourth stage. It was him against Movistar’s three strongest riders. No matter how hard they made it for him, he kept calm and responded wisely. Marc Soler set off, trying to tempt him into a match-burning chase. Bernal chilled and didn’t make any rash moves. Eventually it was Soler whose flame was extinguished. Next, Nairo Quintana had a go at sapping young Egan, accelerating up the road. Again, the novice Colombian didn’t panic. He stuck with Valverde and soon it was Quintana going backwards.

At the summit with 500m to go things flattened out. Bernal realised he was beaten but didn’t let Valverde give him a good trouncing. He just sat with the Movistar rider, let Valverde have his head and cooly finished just behind him.

The next day he set out with intent and took three bonus seconds at the first intermediate sprint. Because he could. He ended up with four top ten finishes across the week. On the day Bernal was born, in January 1997, Valverde was 16 and had been racing bikes for nine years. But it was a gap of seconds, not generations, that split them this week. At the end of day six he’d finished on the same time as Valverde on every stage and was second on GC by 16 seconds. The Spaniard’s lead was solely down to bonuses.

Sadly Bernal crashed when things got feisty towards the end of the final stage. He went out of the race and into the ambulance. Up until then he gave us a tantalising glimpse of what he has to offer. He could turn out to be very special indeed. An exciting climber at Team Sky… how will that pan out?