After so many days going the way of the breakaway, Saturday’s 14th stage of the 79th Vuelta a España swung back to the way of bunch sprint, as Kaden Groves claimed his second victory of the 2024 edition. Groves won Stage 2 as well. Saturday was his sixth Vuelta triumph. On a day that the GC men took it easy, Ben O’Connor kept safe in red. Michael Woods finished in the pack in 54th.
The Course
Saturday’s route didn’t have Friday’s summit finish, but was 200 km long and featured a lengthy, medium-grade Cat. 1 called Puerto de Leitariegos peaking 16 km from the finish.
Not a summit finish today at #LaVuelta24, but a hard and long climb nevertheless not far from the finish is what the peloton will tackle. pic.twitter.com/CmgZ1TGsKf
— Soudal Quick-Step Pro Cycling Team (@soudalquickstep) August 31, 2024
Considering that breakaways had prevailed in the past five stages, you know the action would be hot in the opening hour or so. At almost 50 km/h over the first 1:10, the frenetic pace saw move after move fail. Finally, a sextet made a getaway, and only Isaac del Toro was a 79th Vuelta breakaway debutante.
By the time the six riders started up Cat. 3 Puerto de Cerredo in the middle of the course, their gap was under 2:00. Would the peloton have its day?
Puerto de Leitariegos is almost 23 km of 4.5 percent slopes. Visma-Lease a Bike pulled along the field so that the sextet only had a 1:20 advantage by the time the Cat. 1 kicked up. It immediately split under the impetus of Jhonatan Narváez, the peloton lassoing those fugitives left behind. Narváez was the last to submit with 4 km to climb 20 km in total remaining. Wout van Aert, clad in the green points jersey with blue polka dot jersey on loan to Marc Soler, claimed the maximum KOM points.
A mechanical at a bad time put Primož Roglič in arrears on the descent; he carried on astride teammate Dani Martinez’s bike.
Alpecin-Deceuninck grabbed the reins heading to the uphill finish in Villablino. DSM-Firmenich took over before the red kite. Van Aert was on Kaden Groves’ wheel. Groves launched along the left hand barriers and held off the green jersey by about a foot.
There are harder HC-rated summit finishes than Sunday’s Cuitu Negru climax, but its length will make for interesting racing.
2024 Vuelta a España Stage 14
1) Kaden Groves (Australia/Alpecin-Deceuninck) 4:21:34
2) Wout van Aert (Belgium/Visma-Lease a Bike) s.t.
3) Corbin Strong (New Zealand/Israel-Premier Tech) s.t.
54)…
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