Marc Soler’s victory on stage 5 of the Vuelta a España showed remarkable tenacity and determination as he held off the rest of the break for nearly 20 kilometres into Bilbao. It was far from the first time this year that the UAE Team Emirates racer had shown such courage against the odds – this time, he came out smiling.
This summer, few fans who saw the images of Soler trying desperately to beat the time limit on stage 16 of the Tour de France will have been able to forget them. Repeatedly vomiting as he rode alone to the finish, and despite being advised to quit, the clearly ill Soler did his utmost to stay in the race and not further deplete an already weakened UAE Team Emirates of team workers in support of Tadej Pogačar,
That day, it failed to work out, as Soler crossed the stage 16 finish line a frustratingly close 15 minutes outside the time limit. But on stage 5 in the Vuelta a España, it was another story altogether, as the Catalan fended off the break by a far narrower margin of just a handful of seconds to claim the win.
If the Vuelta a España victory was a form of redemption for Soler after his difficult Tour de France, it also, he said, was a kind of reward for his determination not to lose faith after his terrible crashes and subsequent abandon on the first stage of the Tour de France in 2021.
That in turn had been preceded by a crash and abandon in the 2021 Giro, meaning there was a lot of past emotional baggage for Soler to put behind him this Wednesday as he fought to reach Bilbao’s Gran Via ahead of the break.
“I’m pleased above all that after so much that didn’t work out and all the suffering I’ve been through and my family’s been through, this has all paid off,” Soler told journalists. “Above all, it’s for those reasons.”
Asked specifically about his appalling and ultimately futile attempt to finish inside the time limit on the Tour stage to Foix, Soler said, “that’s exactly the kind of thing I’m talking about, all those hard times, the crash in the Tour last year and the abandon this year.
“I’d never really got things back on track until now. So I’m very happy with how it all worked out now, and I’ll keep on fighting.
“This is only stage 5 and we have to help João [Almeida] fight for the GC. But we can’t let these opportunities go by.”
Soler said that despite appearances, his victory had little similarity to when he had won a first-week stage of the Vuelta in 2020, also solo and also close to…
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