Alpecin-Deceuninck’s Jasper Philipsen sprinted to victory on stage 8 of the Vuelta a España, expertly navigating a chaotic finish to take the victory in Zaragoza.
After missing out on stage 4, the race’s next sprint stage was a big goal for the Belgian who started the stage as a clear favourite, and despite a messy, disorganised lead-out, he came past Elia Viviani (Lotto) at the final moment to claim the win.
Despite wearing the green jersey, Mads Pedersen (Lidl-Trek) failed to crack the top 10 on a stage that proved best-suited to the purest sprinters.
A breakaway of three riders – Sergio Samitier (Cofidis), Joan Bou (Caga Rural-Seguros RGA) and José Luis Faura (Burgos Burpellet BH) – had been away all day, but were reeled in with 17km to go in advance of the sprint finish.
Finishing in the bunch, Torstein Træen (Bahrain Victorious) retained the red jersey for another day with no notable changes on GC.
How it unfolded
Stage 8 of the Vuelta was completely flat for 163km, with not even a categorised climb in sight as all signs pointed towards a sprint finish. As a result of the relaxed parcours, there was also a fairly relaxed pace at the start of the day. A three-man breakaway was let away easily in the first 5km of racing, made up of Sergio Samitier (Cofidis),…
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