Jay Vine soars to mountain triumph as Vingegaard regains Vuelta lead
The Australian claimed his second win of the Vuelta a España from the break on stage 10, while Jonas Vingegaard moved back into the red jersey as Torstein Traeen finally came up short.
Jay Vine (UAE Team Emirates-XRG) soloed to victory from the break at Larra Belagua on stage 10 of the Vuelta a España as Jonas Vingegaard (Visma | Lease a Bike) moved back into the red jersey of race leader.
João Almeida (UAE Team Emirates-XRG) launched a number of attacks on the category 1 climb to the line, but he was unable to shake off Vingegaard, who withstood the onslaught and then controlled affairs though his teammate Matteo Jorgenson on the upper portion of the climb.
Torstein Traeen (Bahrain Victorious) lost the red jersey after he was shaken loose by a brief but powerful stint of pace-making by Juan Ayuso (UAE Team Emirates-XRG), who had generated all the headlines before the stage amid the polemics over his departure from the team.
Shortly after Ayuso swung off with 7km to go, Almeida launched the first of his accelerations, but while his efforts whittled down the GC group, he was never able to trouble Vingegaard or an increasingly assured Tom Pidcock (Q36.5). As the pace relented near the top of the climb, the GC group grew in number again, and they came in 1:05 down on the lone winner Vine.
Vine was part of the sizeable break that formed midway through a rapid stage, and the king of the mountains always looked the most likely winner when the leaders hit the final ascent with a lead of three minutes over the peloton.
Although Pablo Castrillo (Movistar) struck out alone with 7km remaining, Vine bided his time, tracking Archie Ryan (EF Education-EasyPost) before bridging up to the Spaniard. With a little over 5km to go, Vine kicked again, and Castrillo was unable to follow.
The Australian forged clear to take his second stage win of the Vuelta and buttress his lead in the king of the mountains. He came home 35 seconds ahead of Castrillo, with Javier Romo (Movistar) third at 1:04 just ahead of Ryan and the fast-closing Vingegaard group.
In the overall standings, Vingegaard is now 26 seconds ahead of Traeen, with Almeida third at 38 seconds and Picock fourth at 58 seconds.
How it unfolded
The Vuelta resumed after its first rest day with another summit finish, and the drama began even before the stage got under way, with Juan Ayuso likening UAE Team Emirates-XRG management to a “dictatorship” as he picked over the bones of his imminent departure from the team.
There was breathless fare once the race began, too, with a flurry of early attacks failing to establish a breakaway. Instead, the race hurtled away from Sendaviva at an average speed in excess of 50kph, with none of the attackers able to break the high-speed deadlock.
The race finally broke up with 65km to go, when a group of 30 riders managed to forge clear and, after some hesitation, Bahrain Victorious ultimately decided to let them go. The group, which included Junior Lecerf (Soudal-QuickStep), Jay Vine (UAE Team Emirates-XRG) Archie Ryan (EF Education-EasyPost), Javier Romo, Pablo Castrillo (Movistar) and Michal Kwiatkowski (Ineos) built a lead of three minutes by the time they hit the category 3 Alto de Las Coronas.
Their unity began to splinter there, with Romo attacking over the top, and he was joined by Vine over the other side and the front group swelled to ten riders on the approach to the final climb to Larra Belagua.
Alec Segaert (Lotto) clipped away alone with 18km to go, and he hit the foot of the 9km ascent with a lead of 40 seconds Vine et al and 3:17 on the Bahrain-led peloton.
