Saturday’s fourteenth stage of the 80th Vuelta a España saw yet another UAE-Emirates stage victory, as Spanish veteran campaigner Marc Soler took his fourth career Vuelta win. His team has now won seven of the last ten stages, and one of those stages had no victor. Jonas Vingegaard and João Almeida were second and third, keeping the red jersey on the Dane’s shoulders.
The Course
Saturday’s short parcours kept up the climbing insanity—the Cat. 1 summit finish of La Farrapona Lagos de Somied was 16.8 km at 6 percent.
Almeida would be encouraged by his performance on Friday. Could he take back more time?
After numerous protests interrupted the race, Israel-Premier Tech changed its kit to omit the word “Israel” for the remainder of the race.
Israël-Premier Tech retire la mention “Israël” de son maillot pour la fin du Tour d’Espagne. La formation prend cette décision pour “privilégier la sécurité de (ses) coureurs et de l’ensemble du peloton, compte tenu du caractère dangereux de certaines manifestations”.#LaVuelta25
Czech Premier Tech rider Jan Hirt wore his Israel-less jersey in a large breakaway that included Soler and 15th place Bruno Armirail. The appetizer climb was Cat. 3 L’Alto Tenebreo, where Soler claimed the three KOM points on offer. His teammate Jay Vine still led the classification by 13 points over Vingegaard.
As with La Farrapona, there was a long uphill drag to the start of Cat. 1 Puertu de San Llaurienzu (9.9 km of 8.6 percent). On the San Llaurienzu, the escape group shattered. Back in the peloton, UAE-Emirates and Red Bull took over pulling from Visma-Lease a Bike and Egan Bernal was one of those dropped.
James Shaw was the first over the penultimate climb, his breakaway 3:20 to the better of the red jersey group. Both Almeida and Vingegaard had three teammates for the descent and the final 23 uphill kilometres, but Juan Ayuso was soon done his shift for his Portuguese leader. Red Bull grabbed the reins.
Soler attacked with Johannes Staune-Mittet. By the time that the final mountain officially started, Vingegaard and company were 3:15 in arrears. Soler went solo.
The final seven kilometres were 8.5 percent into a…
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