From cancer diagnosis to the red jersey: Torstein Træen takes surprise lead at the Vuelta
The sixth stage of this year’s Vuelta brought its first breakaway win, and, with a huge lead allowed by the GC favourites’ group, it also saw Torstein Træen take the overall leader’s red jersey.
Three and a half years ago, Torstein Træen (Bahrain Victorious) was suffering from testicular cancer. Today the the 30-year-old Norwegian rider is the overall leader at the Vuelta a España.
After an aggressive start to the 170.1km stage between Olot and the tiny Andorran mountain town of Pal, Træen managed to infiltrate a strong breakaway of 10 men, the group allowed to build the biggest gap of any break in this year’s Vuelta.
Only six stages into the year’s final Grand Tour, time gaps at the top of the general classification were still relatively small, and seven of the 10 escapees were within five minutes of Jonas Vingegaard’s (Visma | Lease a Bike) red jersey time. So when their lead topped five minutes, it was clear one rider from the leading group would take the lead.
Having started the day more than 20 minutes down, Jay Vine (UAE Team Emirates-XRG) was not able to challenge Vingegaard’s lead and went on to win the stage, but with the GC battle about to heat up behind, Træen struck out in pursuit. His chase was not for the stage win, but for the right to wear red during Friday’s seventh stage.
And he did it. After finishing second, 54 seconds behind Vine, he now leads the GC by 31 seconds, with many of the day’s other GC riders shaping the top positions.
“It was a hard fight to get into the breakaway, and then they hold it pretty tight,” Træen said in his post-race interview. “I realised it would be a possibility, but then Bruno Armirail (Decathlon-AG2R La Mondiale) was really close to me in GC, so I knew that the last climb would be pretty hard. And then Jay attacked in the downhill. And at one point I also went all in, and yeah, it was really long 5km.”
Træen’s road to Grand Tour leadership has not been an easy one. In 2022, after winning the mountains classification at the Tour of the Alps, an anti-doping test showed some irregularities. Follow-up tests revealed a testicular cancer diagnosis, but no longer is a cancer diagnosis the end of an athlete’s career, and Træen was back competing later that year.
He closed that year with third place overall at the Tour de Langkawi and has gone from strength to strength since, taking top 10 placings at the 2023 Critérium du Dauphiné as well as winning a stage at last year’s Tour de Suisse. But Thursday’s ride was special.
“It feels, what can I say, a bit unexpected maybe,” he said in his post-race interview. “Two days ago, I was talking to my other Norwegian friend here, Johannes [Staune-Mittet, Decathlon-AG2R La Mondiale] about the Norwegian GC. He said, ‘you are a loser because you’re so close in the GC.’
“I said, ‘When I’m in the red jersey after the Andorra stage, I don’t think you call me loser anymore.’ So now I think he owe- owes me some beers in Madrid,” he said, suggesting the jersey-winning move had been planned.
Træen now leads fifth-placed Vingegaard by as much as 2:33, but he’s not expecting too much, especially with Friday’s stage featuring another mountain top finish. “I don’t know how far I can make. Maybe tomorrow already they almost take it back. This is also the possibility.”
