photo credits @ La Vuelta
On the eve of the first rest day, Jonas Vingegaard (Visma–Lease a Bike) put the hammer down to claim a solo win in stage 9 of the Vuelta a España today, after his narrow success in stage 2 in Limone Piemonte. The Dane launched his move more than 10 kilometers from the line at Valdezcaray and rode clear to victory ahead of Tom Pidcock (Q36.5) and Joao Almeida (UAE Team Emirates–XRG).
Meanwhile, Giulio Ciccone (Lidl–Trek) tried to respond but cracked, losing 1’46’’, the same time as Torstein Træen (Bahrain Victorious). However, the Norwegian managed to hang onto the La Roja, 37’’ ahead of Vingegaard, with Almeida (+1’15’’) and Pidcock (+1’35’’) next in the standings.
Race Highlights
After repeated attacks, Michal Kwiatkowski (Ineos Grenadiers) and Archie Ryan (EF Education-EasyPost) finally managed to ride clear of the peloton after 48 kilometers of racing.
Michel Hessmann (Movistar) and Liam Slock (Lotto) later bridged their way to the lead duo, while Kevin Vermaerke (Picnic PostNL) soon joined to make it a five-man breakaway.
Mads Pedersen (Lidl-Trek) and Sander De Pestel (Decathlon AG2R La Mondiale) briefly tried to bridge across but to no avail, while the escapees opened their advantage to 2’45’’ after the 100 kilometer mark.
However, with 20 kilometers remaining, the breakaway group’s gap had fallen to just 55’’ before being reined in at the bottom of the final climb.
From there, Matteo Jorgenson (Visma-Lease a Bike) commenced a brutal attack with 11 kilometers to go, taking his teammate Vingegaard with him, while Ciccone desperately tried to follow their move. But, the Italian rider was eventually dropped 10 kilometers from the summit.
Vingegaard then accelerated away to the summit, leaving Pidcock and Almeida struggling in his wake.
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