A five man breakaway, which occurred at kilometer 51 as riders approached the Viladrau mountain pass, was the deciding move at Stage 1 of Volta a Catalunya. Omega Pharma - Quick Step Cycling Team was not in the crucial break, but they did not expend too much energy chasing the break either.
The 138.9km race, from Calella to Calella, featured three mountain passes. The break extended their gap to 6'05"during the descent into Barcelona. While the peloton cut the gap down to 2'30" at kilometer 81, the break continued to keep the gap to more than 2 minutes, and as much as 3'20" with 20km remaining.
However, the break split up shortly thereafter, as Michael Albasini (GreenEDGE) attacked. Nicolas Edet (Cofidis) and Anthony Delaplace (Saur Sojasun) chased, and kept the gap to less than 40" between them and the race leader. Albasini went on to a solo victory, Delaplace finished 2nd and Edet was 3rd.
The peloton kept the gap to 2'05" at the last time check before the race finished, meaning the general classification time difference was kept reasonable.