There was nothing dull about Thursday’s sixth stage of the 79th Vuelta a España, from the frenetic early attacking and counterattacking to the race lead changing hands, as Ben O’Connor added a Vuelta stage win to one at the Tour de France and one at the Giro d’Italia. The Decathlon-AG2R Australian, having finished fourth in both the Tour and the Giro, soloed to victory from a breakaway and seized the red jersey from Primož Roglič. After giving up his race lead, Primož Roglič now has to figure out how to make up 4:51. Michael Woods was 34th on the day and rose to 39th on GC.
The Course
Starting inside a Carrefour supermarket in Jerez de la Frontera (clean up in aisle 3!), Stage 6 offered up a Cat. 1, but the trio of Cat. 3’s in the latter half of 185 km would be more consequential. Thursday’s summit finish was a pretty mild Cat. 3 called Alto de las Abejas.
A medium mountain stage 6 at #LaVuelta24 and two scenarios: the GC favourites go again for the win or a breakaway takes the spoils at the end of the day. pic.twitter.com/vJsMdYooJk
— Soudal Quick-Step Pro Cycling Team (@soudalquickstep) August 22, 2024
#LaVuelta24 It’s amazing what you can find in the middle aisle pic.twitter.com/BTJLECCPUx
— Lidl-Trek (@LidlTrek) August 22, 2024
The parcours elicited an immense breakaway, 32 chaps getting loose and hitting the foot of long, moderate Cat. 1 Puerto del Boyar with a 1:30 advantage over the peloton. Best placed in the GC was 25th Cristián Rodríguez at +1:58. Riders immediately started to flare out of the field, including Mike Woods. Rusty’s move didn’t pan out, but the escape group continued to go, with 17th place Isaac del Toro and teammate Jay Vine helping to swell the numbers.
As soon as the vast majority of the breakaway mob was captured by Movistar’s toils, another chase–this one containing O’Connor–burst forth, and UAE-Emirates whipped up the pace high enough to put fourth place Antonio Tiberi in trouble. A dozen riders tipped over the topa half minute clear. The furious counterattacks ceased, the gap went up and soon Florian Lipowitz had taken over the virtual red jersey from teammate Roglič.
With his Red Bull team working the business end of the peloton, Lipowitz saw this gap go up. O’Connor was six seconds behind the German in the GC and Rodríguez was eight seconds in arrears. By seizing six bonus…
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