Colombian runner Sergio Higuita, serving Bora-Hansgrohe, managed to keep the Catalan tour in its 101st edition. In this way, the Antioquian won his first title in the WorldTour category after a heads-up with Ecuadorian cyclist Richard Carapaz.
This Sunday the 24-year-old rider gave a great demonstration in the seventh stage of the Vuelta a Catalunya, after being crowned champion of it, thus becoming the fifth coffee cyclist to win it.
In addition, Higuita also led the mountain standings with 28 points, and the youth standings were won by Portuguese João Almeida, who finished third overall at 52 seconds. While Richard Carapaz, with whom he had an entertaining duel in Saturday's escape, finished in second place at 16 seconds.
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The brand-new champion of the Vuelta a Catalunya, said that having previously won the 2020 Tour Colombia gave him confidence for this great achievement in his career although he said he feared losing the title to Carapaz.
For his part, Italian Andrea Bagioli (Quick-Step) won the fraction, after winning the sprint against Hungarian Attila Valter (Groupama) and Spaniard Fernando Barceló (Caja Rural), who placed second and third, respectively.
Final overall ranking:
1. Sergio Higuita (Colombia/BORA) - 29:53:13 ″
2. Richard Carapaz (Ecuador/INEOS Grenadiers) - 0:16″
3. João Almeida (Portugal/UAE Team Emirates) - 0:52 ″
4. Nairo Quintana (Colombia (Arkéa Samsic) - 0:53 ″
5. Juan Ayuso (Spain/UAE Team Emirates) - 1:08 ″
The first time a Colombian cyclist was crowned champion of this round was Álvaro Mejía in 1993, who at that time was racing for the US team Motorola-Merkcx, beating the Italian Maurizio Frondriest del Lampre, who despite winning the last stage was not enough to beat the Risaraldense.
Five years later there would be another celebration at the “Volta a Catalunya” thanks to the performance of Hernán Buenhora. The Barichara, Santander born who was competing for the Spanish team, Vitalicio Seguros, was crowned champion over the Austrian Georg Totschnig of Team Deutsche Telekom.
After 18 years of drought, Nairo Quintana won in 2016 when he was racing for the Iberian Movistar Team. In that edition, the champion of the Giro d'Italia and Vuelta a España won the beat against Spaniard Alberto Contador del Tinkoff, in the year in which he would end up winning the Iberian round.
In 2019, the fourth coronation of a Colombian rider would come after the title of Michelangelo 'Superman' Lopez from Astana in Kazakhstan, beating British Adam Yates of Mitchelton-Scott. It should be noted that the native of Pesca (Boyacá) was also the leader of the youth classification.
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