Vine victorious at Vuelta as Torstein Træen takes red
Jay Vine climbed through the Pyrenees to take the win from the day’s 10-man breakaway, while Torstein Træen finished second to take over the race lead. In the GC group, the race favourites exchanged blows, but it was honours even.
Jay Vine (UAE Team Emirates-XRG) won the first real mountain stage at the Vuelta España on Thursday, the Australian attacking the day's 10-man breakaway to take a solo win.
Behind him, Torstein Træen (Bahrain Victorious) finished second and moves into the overall lead after starting the day only 58 seconds behind Jonas Vingegaard (Visma | Lease a bike), who finished 11th, 4:19 behind the winner.
Lorenzo Fortunato (XDS Astana) finished third on the stage.
Vine had been part of the 10 breakaway and attacked around 20km from the line, with the rest of the break unable or unwilling to chase. In the end, Træen set off in pursuit, his move earning him the leader's red jersey.
Despite some attacks, there was no change in thefavourites' group, though the final climb proved too much for Juan Ayuso, the UAE Team Emirates-XRG rider dropped early on, finishing 11:51 behind the winner, and out of the current GC battle.
How it unfolded
After Wednesday’s team time trial, stage six took the Vuelta a España into the high mountains for a 170.3km stage between Olot and Pal, the race crossing another border into Andorra for a mountain top finish.
The route began with a third category climb before heading into the Pyrenées and ascending the Collada de Toses, qualifying for its first category classification by virtue of the 24km, not the 3.5% average gradient. That was crested with 103km to go and preceded a long descent before the extended climb to the line, the early kilometres of which were gradual.
Crossing the border into Andorra the race tackled the steep, but relatively short Alto de la Comella, before the final test. The climb to Pal was 9.6km long, but its average gradient of 6.5% failed to the tell the whole story, its middle section presenting some brutal slopes and attacking opportunities.
The day's uphill opening kilometres were busy, a number of small groups gaining an advantage before, finally, a group of 10 got away. Having started the day occupying second, third and fourth on GC, UAE Team Emirates-XRG cleverly managed to get Jay Vine in that breakaway, the Australian joined by Pablo Castrillo (Movistar), Louis Vervaeke and Gianmarco Garofoli (both Soudal-Quickstep), Ramses Debruyne (Alpecin-Deceuninck), Archie Ryan and James Shaw (both EF Education-EasyPost), Bruno Amirail (Decathlon-AG2R La Mondiale) Torstein Træen (Bahrain Victorious) and Lorenzo Fortunato (XDS Astana), their lead approaching four minutes over the top of day’s second climb.
With 50km to go and the road edging gently upwards, the breakaway’s advantage was approaching six minutes and it seemed they would win the day. With Træen the best placed of seven breakaway riders within five minutes of red jersey Jonas Vingegaard, the race was primed for a new overall leader.
Vine attacked the breakaway just short of the top of the penultimate climb, taking the mountains points and continuing the descent alone, with the chasing group unable to close the gap on wet roads. As Vine’s lead increased through Andorra La Vella, the chasers were unable to make inroads on their deficit and the Australian took a lead of 55 seconds into the final 10km, with the peloton 5:10 behind.
Four kilometres from the finish Vine’s lead was still at 50 seconds when Træen set off in pursuit, hoping to the take the overall lead, but the drama was behind, Vine’s Spanish team mate, Juan Ayuso dropped from the Lidl-Trek led peloton.
With Vine closing in on the final kilometre Lidl-Trek’s plan came to fruition, Giulio Ciccone attacking, with only Vingegaard able to follow. The pair briefly opened a gap on the rest of the GC leaders, but João Almeida (UAE Team Emirates-XRG) brought it back and led the GC group home.
