Vingegaard bounces back from crash to sprint into red on Vuelta stage 2

Jonas Vingegaard (Visma | Lease a Bike) powered to victory in an uphill sprint on a rain-soaked stage 2 of the Vuelta a España in Limone Piemonte. 

Vingegaard managed to come past Giulio Ciccone (Lidl-Trek) on the line to claim his first Grand Tour stage win in over a year. Ciccone finished second on the stage with David Gaudu (Groupama-FDJ) in third.

There was a big crash on a roundabout in wet conditions with 26.5km to go, which involved multiple riders, including Vingegaard and Tom Pidcock (Q36.5). However, all those who were involved in the crash were able to continue, with Vingegaard and Pidcock quickly rejoining the peloton before the foot of the summit finish.

It marks the third victory of the season for Vingegaard after his stage win and GC success at the Volta ao Algarve back in February.

Vingegaard is the new leader of the general classification, taking the red jersey from Jasper Philipsen (Alpecin-Deceuninck) with the Belgian sprinter out of contention once the road began to rise.

The Dane leads the general classification by 4 seconds over Ciccone and 6 seconds over Gaudu.

The day’s early breakaway formed with three riders; Gal Glivar (Alpecin-Deceuninck), Jakub Otruba (Caja Rural-Seguros RGA), and Liam Slock (Lotto), with Sinuhé Fernández (Burgos Burpellet BH) in the chase and eventually bridging across.

The gap between the quartet and the peloton never really grew much more than two minutes, illustrating the intent from teams within the bunch to fight for the stage win.

Rain started to fall shortly before the intermediate sprint in Busca as Q36.5 signalled their ambitions for the stage with Tom Pidcock, riding on the front of the peloton.

It was Slock who crossed the line first to gain the maximum 20 points at the intermediate sprint ahead of his breakaway companions. 

With 46km to go, the rain began to pour down, as Otruba kicked on in the breakaway with an acceleration that only Glivar was able to follow. Fernández was gapped by an unretrievable distance, but Slock battled his way back to the wheel of the front duo around a kilometre later.

All the while, Q36.5 were still working on the front of the peloton with the gap still at just over 2:00. On a treacherous downhill section in the rain, race radio reported a crash for Guillaume Martin (Groupama-FDJ), and it was later confirmed that the 32-year-old Frenchman had abandoned the race.

George Bennett suffered a crash with just under 30km to go, and he looked in a significant amount of pain as he remounted his bike.

There was another crash on a roundabout with 26.5km remaining, including Pidcock and Vingegaard among others, including more Q36.5 and Visma riders. It was the Dane’s teammate Axel Zingle who came off worse and looked like he would have to abandon on the spot, but the Frenchman remarkably managed to continue.

Naturally, the pace in the peloton decreased with riders such as Vingegaard able to chase back on. This also meant that the breakaway’s advantage increased once more to the 1:45 mark with less than 20km remaining.

The gap between the breakaway trio and the peloton breached the sub-one-minute mark with 12km remaining.

Philipsen was dropped with 10km remaining, confirming that there would be a new race leader at the end of the stage.

Slock attacked on the lower slopes of the climb, leaving behind his companions, but was caught by the charging peloton with just under 6km remaining.

Vimsa | Lease a Bike hit the front when the gradients began to ramp up with under 4km remaining, with Lidl-Trek likewise shortly after in a tug of war battle. It was Lidl–Trek who led under the flamme rouge.

Marc Soler (UAE Team Emirates-XRG) attacked with 600m remaining, with Sepp Kuss (Visma | Lease a Bike) responding, before Felix Gall (Decathlon AG2R La Mondiale) and Pidcock opened up his sprint. Ciccone matched the British rider and surged into the lead with Vingegaard battling in the wheel before coming past the Italian just metres from the finish line.