photo credits @ La Vuelta
A week after claiming his first Vuelta a España stage win at Cerler, Juan Ayuso (UAE Team Emirates-XRG) powered to a second victory in Los Corrales de Buelna. The Spaniard has now grown into a star who showed his grit and skills to claim victory from a hard-fought breakaway. Over the day’s climbs, Ayuso benefited from the crucial support of Marc Soler, his teammate in UAE Team Emirates-XRG – a squad he is set to leave at the end of the season – before launching his decisive attack with 25 km to go. Javier Romo (Movistar) managed to follow him, but couldn’t withstand his compatriot’s acceleration in a two-man sprint.
Race Highlights
As expected, attackers were very much inspired by today’s stage, with a brutal battle for a breakaway getting underway enroute to the first climb of the day, the Puerto de Alisas.
Soler was the first rider over the summit, with an impressive cohort of attackers in his wake. However, it wasn’t until the valley that a large continent of riders came to the front, including Ayuso, Mads Pedersen (Lidl-Trek), Pablo Castrillo (Movistar), Mikel Landa (Soudal Quick-Step), Magnus Sheffield, Michal Kwiatkowski (Ineos Grenadiers), Santiago Buitrago (Bahrain Victorious) and Eddie Dunbar (Jayco AlUla) amongst them.
With no direct GC threat at the front, the gap gradually increased, while Soren Kragh Andersen and Julien Bernard controlled the breakaway to ensure Pedersen took the full 20 points at the intermediate sprint in Barros.
However, the breakaway exploded as the group passed through Los Corrales de Buelna for the first time, followed by the decisive climb of the day, the Collada de Brene.
From there, James Shaw (EF Education-EasyPost), Finlay Pickering (Bahrain Victorious) and Brieuc Rolland (Groupama-FDJ) controlled the pace, but Soler worked in earnest to propel Ayuso to front, who set off 3 kilometers away from the summit, with 25 kilometers to go to the finish.
Romo later managed to bridge his way to Ayuso. But, the Spanish rider proved to be too strong, who nixed his fellow countryman on the line, while Rolland completed the top 3 with a gap of 13’’.
In the meantime, the GC contenders cross the line with a gap of 6’20’’ on the eve of L’Angliru.
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