Jake Stewart had a dual mandate on the road to Bilbao on stage 5 of the Vuelta a España. His primary duty was to try to help Groupama-FDJ teammate and fellow escapee Rudy Molard into the red jersey, but that didn’t preclude him from seeking stage victory for himself.
The stiff Alto del Vivero, tackled twice in the finale, didn’t lend itself to Stewart’s talents, and he was duly dropped on the first ascent before scrambling his way back on over the other side. After the break crossed the finish line in Bilbao for the first time with 26km remaining, Stewart reasoned that attack was his best form of defence.
Stewart quickly amassed a lead of 50 seconds over a breakaway that had long since lost any cohesion, and when he maintained a sizeable part of his buffer on the lower slopes of the Vivero, stage victory suddenly seemed within his grasp. Those hopes, however, would be dashed by Marc Soler (UAE Team Emirates), who attacked forcefully from the chasing group, catching and passing the Briton on the upper reaches of the climb.
“Once we got Rudy and myself in the breakaway, there was one objective: to get Rudy into red again,” Stewart said afterwards. “The stage win was also on my mind, and I knew if I could over that final climb towards the front, then I could do a good sprint. I got myself ahead before that final climb and I thought I was going to hold them off, but then Soler came flying past me and I could do nothing.”
Stewart had already done plenty by then. The 22-year-old rode generously on Molard’s behalf after the decisive break of thirteen formed 70km into Wednesday’s rugged run through the Basque Country, and he was also able to offer valuable advice to his teammate about the biggest threat to his virtual overall lead.
Stewart’s regular training partner Fred Wright (Bahrain Victorious) was also aboard the break and just four seconds behind Molard in the overall standings. With a bonus of ten seconds on offer to the stage winner, Molard could not afford to allow Wright to be first across the line in Bilbao and he marked the Briton tightly on the run-in, having failed to drop him on the climbs.
“With 60k to go to the finish, I said to Rudy, ‘You need to drop Fred, because if not he’ll roll you in a sprint,’” Stewart said. “I train a lot with Fred and if I do sprints against him, it’s kind of 60-40 in my favour. So I knew if it came down to a sprint [with Molard], then Fred was going to have it.”
Wright, fresh from an…
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