photo credits @ La Vuelta
A chaotic day in the Vuelta a España saw Adam Yates solo to victory and into the fight for the overall title, while Enric Mas survived a huge scare after taking the fight to the leaders.
Meanwhile, Primoz Roglic struggled to hold the wheel just one day after his superb win on Stage 8, with Ben O’Connor taking four bonus seconds to tighten his grip on the red jersey.
Teed up by his teammates Marc Soler and Jay Vine, Yates attacked from the remnants of a large breakaway with 58km remaining and rode away to one of the finest wins of his career.
Richard Carapaz (EF Education-EasyPost) took second and sneaked into third on the general classification, while Mas took the fight to leader O’Connor and Roglic.
Although the Spaniard recovered to remount his chain, he was soon reeled in before O’Connor showed a flash of strength heading into the first rest day by winning the sprint for third place, taking four bonus seconds on the line.
“I’m super happy with how we were as a team,” he said afterward. “We were composed, we led from the front, and Felix was excellent on the final climb. I didn’t lose time today and in the end, I showed what I can do, so I’m proud.”
O’Connor leads the general classification by 3’53” from Roglic, with Carapaz at 4’32” and Mas at 4’35”. Yates climbs into seventh at 5’30”.
Race Highlights
Breakaway attempts got underway as soon as the flag dropped, initiated early on by green jersey Wout van Aert. Within just a few kilometers, Van Aert had dragged a small group clear, and this very quickly swelled in size, with 24 riders up the road after just 10km of racing.
UAE Team Emirates was the best-represented team in the front group with Yates, Soler and Vine all there. They were joined by riders from most of the big teams, including Kasper Asgreen (Soudal Quick-Step), David Gaudu (Groupama-FDJ) and Chris Harper (Jayco AlUla), but notably no rider from the race-leading team Decathlon AG2R La Mondiale nor Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe.
The situation remained stable for most of the first half of the stage, with the leaders working well together and the bunch keeping the gap steady as the trio of finishing climbs approached.
The pace UAE set was relentless, and not even halfway up the climb, they’d already reduced the lead group to just nine riders.
Behind, Carapaz launched a move from the bunch, joining James Shaw, dropped from the break, and soon Rafferty, who sat up to wait for his teammate. They found themselves mid-way between the leaders and the peloton by the bottom of the descent.
On the second climb – the first of a double ascent of the Alto de Hazallanas – the leading group quickly broke apart even first, with Vine, Yates and Gaudu pushing on on the early slopes. With Carapaz fast approaching, Yates went away alone 4.3km from the summit and crested the top of the climb 40 seconds clear of his closest chasers and only extending his gap.
By the time he hit the Hazallanas climb for the second time with 30km to go, Yates was 2:48 ahead of a group made up of Gaudu and Carapaz and 6:40 ahead of the heavily reduced peloton of GC riders.
Halfway up the climb, Enric Mas (Movistar) attacked the red jersey group to go clear, leaving behind a small cluster of just seven main GC riders including O’Connor, Roglič and Landa. The Spaniard looked good and went over the top in a good position, but a wobble on the descent took the wind out of his move, and on the flat, he was caught by the GC group as things regrouped in the battle for third on the stage.
The favorites group sprinted it out for third, with O’Connor just edging out Mikel Landa (Soudal Quick-Step) in a positive sign after his losses on stage 8.
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