Nutty finish at Stage 1 of Volta ao Algarve when almost everyone takes wrong turn

Stage 1 of the 2025 Volta ao Algarve was won by Filippo Ganna, sort of. The Italian took advantage of a late split in the peloton, while most of the sprinters went the wrong way in a chaotic finale. Ganna was one of the few riders who followed the correct route and ended up taking the “victory.” However, after all the confusion, race organizers decided not to record an official result.

The Volta ao Algarve in Portugal kicked off Wednesday with a stage designed for the sprinters. The 190-km route from Portimão to Lagos featured just one significant climb, the Portela de Nave (2.2 km at 5.9 per cent), but with its summit nearly 100 km from the finish, it was never going to trouble the sprinters.
Eight riders tried to shake things up with an early breakaway. The move was dominated by Portuguese riders.

Early break does what early breaks do

The break was never seen as a real threat, and the gap quickly stretched to five minutes before the sprint teams began to reel them in. By the time they reached the base of the Portela de Nave, the advantage was down to about four minutes—everything was under control.

Sprint finish goes off the rails

After the climb, Salgueiro and Morais tried to keep the break alive, but Salgueiro soon dropped his companion and continued solo. With 23 km to go, the peloton swallowed them up, setting the stage for the  sprint.

And here comes the sprint…oh

In the final five kilometres, the pace ramped up, with Lotto-Dstny working for Arnaud De Lie, Tudor for Alberto Dainese, and EF Education-EasyPost for Madis Mihkels. Everything pointed to a textbook bunch sprint—until chaos unfolded in the final kilometre.

In an astonishing turn of events, a large portion of the peloton went off course after the flamme rouge.

Filippo Ganna wins the SLIGHTLY BIZARRE first stage of Volta ao Algarve 🤯 #VoltaAoAlgarve pic.twitter.com/v0Zckq96ep

— Eemeli (@LosBrolin) February 19, 2025

At a key roundabout, riders were supposed to turn left to enter the finishing straight. But the route for team cars and race vehicles went to the right—and marshals failed to block it off. As a result, most of the peloton mistakenly followed the cars onto a parallel road, missing the finish entirely.

Filippo Ganna, however, was alert and took the correct turn. Race officials attempted—unsuccessfully—to redirect the others, but Ganna was already pulling clear. He held off a small group and crossed the line solo.

Confusion and anger from the pack

Meanwhile, on the parallel road, the majority of the peloton still sprinted as if nothing had happened—except there was no actual finish line. Jordi Meeus was the fastest, but the line he “won” at was just a road marking at an intersection. Confusion reigned, both during and after the race.

With the finish causing an uproar, organizers ultimately decided to annul the stage results, leaving the day without an official winner.

After the race, Ganna’s Ineos Grenadiers’ X account joked, “Looks like no one wanted to sprint against Filippo Ganna!”

It seems the moto may have led the riders the wrong way—but there has been no official statement from the organizers yet, apart from saying the results are annulled.

Riders furious with finish

After the race, many riders had choice words for the organizers.  Tudor’s Marco Haller said that he could see that in the last km, the deviation wasn’t blocked by race officials.

“Obviously, when the riders are coming they follow the moto like they always do and for me, it’s pretty ridiculous. We suffer for 190 km to put ourselves in the best position and then it’s basically everything for nothing,” he said to Eurosport. “That’s a joke. It’s really something where there need to be also consequences for the officials. And for the organizers because it cannot always be the riders who are blamed. We are in the heat of the moment and it’s a race situation, so it is very, very frustrating.”