photo credits @ La Vuelta
Michael Woods (Israel-Premier Tech) took an impressive victory in stage 13 of the Vuelta a España today, after the Canadian rider jettisoned the remnants of the day’s breakaway with 4.8km to go along the summit finish of the Puerto de Ancares, dispatching the likes of Mauro Schmid (Jayco AlUla) and Wout van Aert (Visma-Lease a Bike) who were once part of a 23-rider strong group that disintegrated on the lower slopes of day’s final climb.
The quintet rode clear as the gradient kicked up into the double digits with 5km left, with Schmidt and Woods later pushing clear.
From there, Woods quickly dropped Schmidt, steadily opening up his gap.
Behind, Movistar set the pace in the peloton, clearly trying to set up an assault on the GC by Enric Mas, who started the day third in the overall competition.
Mas was able to follow when Roglič attacked initially but as the climb ground on he was distanced with two kilometers to go.
With four of the final five kilometers possessing gradients in the double digits the final first category climb of Puerto de Ancares was never well suited to O’Connor (Decathlon-AG2R La Mondiale).
O’Connor, paced initially be a teammate, was fighting hard to limit his losses not just to Primioz Roglič but to other GC rivals including Ricahrd Carapaz (EF Education-EasyPost), Mas, Carlos Rodriguez (Ineos Grenadiers) and Mikel Landa (Soudal-Quick Step).
As Roglič crossed the finish line O’Connor still had 500m left to ride, crossing the line 1.54 behind his rival.
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