Volta a Portugal: Adrià Pericas scores first pro win on stage 7, outfoxing Guérin and Nych in three-up sprint finish

Portuguese squad Anicolor had won four of the past five Voltas (two with Mauricio Moreira, two with Nych), and their dominance shows no sign of letting up this year. 34-year-old Guérin and 31-year-old Nych already held the race in a stranglehold following stage 4’s Torre ascent and the following day’s time trial, and they only extended their GC lead here.

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The team put on a hard pace going into the day’s second and final first-category climb, the part-cobbled Alto de Germil, taking Pericas and Pedro Silva (Feira dos Sofás-Boavista) with them. Silva couldn’t hold on over the top, though, and so the leading trio raced towards the hilltop finish with 28 seconds ahead of him and with over two minutes in hand over anyone else.

Guerin remains in the race leader’s yellow jersey with three stages – including Saturday’s famed Senhora da Graça summit finish – left to run, while Nych stays in second overall, 47 seconds down. Pericas leapt up to third overall at 1:57, having made up well over three minutes on Tiago Antunes (Efapel), having been 35 seconds behind him this morning.

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Towards the start of the stage, a large breakaway of 13 riders went clear as the race explored the Peneda-Gerês National Park, with stage 6 winner Xabier Isasa (Euskaltel-Euskadi) among them. He was keen for another day out front, but the move didn’t stay together for long, falling apart 50km into the race.

It was there, on the run to the day’s opening first-category climb, the Mata da Albergaria (11.9km at 5.95%), where Fábio Costa (Feira dos Sofás-Boavista), runner-up at the recent Troféu Joaquim Agostinho, struck out alone.

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He raced across the top and down the descent with a 40-second lead despite missing a corner on the way down. Nonetheless, as the race dipped in and out of Spain, he extended his advantage to 1:20 as Anicolor-Campicarn led the chase behind.

The men in yellow charged back into Portugal towards the next first-category climb of the Alto de Germil (11.9km at 5.9%), determined to track Costa down and make the climb a GC fight. They duly did so in the early kilometres of the climb, leaving just race leader Guérin, 2024 and 2025 winner Nych at the front along with fourth-placed Adrià Pericas and eighth-placed Pedro Silva (Feira dos Sofás-Boavista), while the other GC hopefuls, including third-placed Antunes, dropped away.

The leaders built their advantage on the way up the climb, which featured several cobbled sections, though Silva couldn’t hold the pace and was dropped, trailing by several seconds at the summit. The next group consisting of Jokin Murguialday (Euskaltel-Euskadi) and José Neves (GI Group Holding-Simoldes-UDO) – a former Volta do Futuro winner racing his first Volta after a doping ban at W52-Porto – lay over a minute down.

Guérin had a scare on the descent, at one point unclipping to stay upright on a tight bend, but he, Nych, and Pericas held it together to race towards the final hilltop finish together with 20 seconds over Silva and two minutes up on Murguialday and Neves as Antunes lay a further minute back.

The closing climb to the Termas do Gerês (4.6km at 4%) saw Guérin, Nych and Pericas rotate on the front all the way to the final kilometre, each keen to maximise their GC gains. Guérin led Pericas and Nych up that final rise, and it was the young Spaniard who had the last laugh, outpacing both of them to score the win.