photo credits @ La Vuelta
Wout van Aert (Visma-Lease A Bike) claimed his second stage victory in this year’s Vuelta a España after winning stage 7 in Cordoba, beating Mathias Vacek (Lidl-Trek) to the line to further extend his lead in the Green Jersey classification.
Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe blew the peloton apart over the late climb of the Alto del 14% with 25.5km to go, while attacks and counters flew along the descent and the flat run back into town.
A final attack came from Pavel Sivakov (UAE Team Emirates), who was later caught during the closing 200 meters, leaving Van Aert in the perfect spot to launch his sprint, easily holding off Vacek to cross the line, while Pau Miquel (Kern Pharma) came through to round out the podium a bit further back.
In the meantime, Primoz Roglič (Red Bull–Bora–Hansgrohe) clawed back six seconds in his quest for a fourth red jersey, but the Slovenian rider still has to make up 4:45 on Ben O’Connor (Decathlon–AG2R La Mondiale) after he fell back considerably during yesterday’s stage.
Earlier, Roglič launched a series of accelerations along the Alto del, collecting six bonus seconds at the summit, with his teammate and defending champion Sepp Kuss gaining four seconds. But, there were bigger movements on GC further down the climb.
Red Bull’s offensive partly backfired as Florian Lipowitz, fourth overall, was dropped and finished 17 seconds down, while Thymen Arensman (Ineos Grenadiers) lost a further minute while the shine was taken off Visma’s day as Cian Uijtdebroeks bombed and lost eight minutes.
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