Sacha Modolo continued his dream start with Lampre-Merida when he took his fourth win of the season in the bunch sprint that ended the first stage of the Volta ao Algarve. On a perfect day for Lampre-Merida, he beat his teammate Rui Costa into second while Mark Cavendish (Omega Pharma-Quick Step) was again denied his first win of the season, with his teammate Alessandro Petacchi completing the podium.

Sacha Modolo has been unstoppable right from the beginning of the season, winning one stage of the Tour de San Luis and two of the four races in the Challenge Mallorca. Today he continued his success with his new Lampre-Merida team when he led home a 1-2 for the squad in the first stage of the Volta ao Algarve.

The opening day of the Portuguese race ended with the notoriously tricky finish in Albufeira where sprint teams have often had difficulties controlling things. Nonetheless, it all came down to the predicted bunch sprint but the winner was not the one that most expected.

Omega Pharma-Quick Step had led the chase for most of the day, hoping that the combination of Mark Cavendish, Mark Renshaw and Alessandro Petacchi would finally be successful. However, they could only manage 3rd with Petacchi while the day belonged to Lampre-Merida.

In the bunch sprint, Modolo was the fastest and to make the domination complete, local hero and world champion crossed the line in 2nd to pick up a few unexpected bonus seconds early in the race. Talented French sprinters Bryan Coquard (Europcar) and Arnaud Demare (FDJ) could only manage 4th and 6th.

With the win, Modolo is also the first leader of the 5-day race but he will have difficulty defending his lead tomorrow. The 196km second stage from Lagoa to Monchique  has a very hilly finale. A 4.6km climb with an average gradient of 7.6% is located just 5.8km from the finish and is followed by a fast downhill run to the line. The stage could be a first chance for the climbers to take some time ahead of Friday's important time trial.

A flat opener

The 40th Volta ao Algarve kicked off with a 160km stage from Faro to Albufeira that was mostly flat and perfectly suited to a bunch sprint. However, the finish was well-known and a tricky small hill inside the final kilometres had often denied the sprinters the chance to sprint for the win.

The many Portuguese teams were eager to be involved in the early action and so it took some time for the break to be established. After 3km of racing, things were still together but 7km further up the road, the elastic had snapped.

Continental riders on the attack

Unsurprisingly, the continental teams dominated the early break which was made up of Bruno Silva (Efapel), Cesar Fonte (Radio Popular), Luis Afonso (LA Aluminios), Valter Pereira (Banco BIC) and Alexandr Pliuschin (Skydive Dubai). The quintet started to build up a gap while Francisco Moreno (Louletano) set off in pursuit.

The lone chaser had no success and was quickly back in the bunch while Fonte beat Silva and Pereira in the first intermediate sprint after 12.5km of racing. 7.5km further up the road, the escapees were 3.23 ahead but Omega Pharma-Quick Step did not leave anything to chance, bringing the advantage down to 2.44 at the 28km mark.

A battle for KOM points

Pereira beat Silva and Fonte to become the first leader of the mountains classification and at the top, the quintet had reopened their gap to 3.31. However, there was no great cooperation in the group, with several attacks prompting the group to split up.

Silva and Pereira fell off the pace and spent a long time chasing behind the front trio, always remaining between 30 and 40 seconds behind. The peloton had allowed the gap to grow to a maximum of 4.34 and kept it between 4 and 5 minutes for a long time.

The chasers are caught

Fonte beat Afonso and Pliushin in the second intermediate sprint and at that time, the two chasers finally gave up and fell back to the peloton. The main group had now upped the pace with Omega Pharma-Quick Step bringing the gap down to 2.41 after 95km.

With 40km to go, the gap was only 1.22 and 10km further up the road, the escapees were just 30 seconds ahead. Pliuschin decided to take off on his own while Afonso and Fonte were both caught.

All is set for a sprint

Pliuschin did his best to stay away but with 20km to go, it was over for the Moldovan as Efapel-Glassdrive had now taken control of the peloton. All was now set for a big bunch sprint, with the teams of the sprinters jostling for position in the fast run-in to the line.

Most eyes were on Omega Pharma-Quick Step in the hectic finale but in the end, Lampre-Merida came away with the goods. Modolo and Costa made it a 1-2 for the Italians while Petacchi took 3rd and Cavendish only 92nd.