Welcome to the finale of La Vuelta 2020! It’s a Lecuisinier vs. Tenorio today, as Kritskiy lost 1’08” yesterday and seems to be out of contention for the GC win, although two minutes in the mountains are still doable. It’s not the hardest of mountain stages, but definitely neither the easiest. The riders will have to conquer four mountains of first category, with some steep parts on every mountain. Let’s find out who wins this Vuelta!
Today the riders will be climbing two mountains twice, both times from a different direction. The first and last climb will be the Puerto de Navacerrada, the first time it will be 15.6 km at an average gradient of 5.2%. The hardest part are the last 4 km though, where the average gradient is way higher. There are only nine riders in the breakaway, including KoM-leader (88 points) Novak once again! His biggest rival for the KoM, Smith, isn’t here! The other eight riders up front are Kennaugh (27th GC and 5th KoM with 44 points), Sequera (26th GC and 9th KoM with 37 points), Arifin, Salinas (30th GC), Quita, Nesset (19th GC), Faglum Karlsson (15th GC) and Valls (18th GC). 64 KoM points to win today, let’s see who scores best!
It seems like Arifin won’t be scoring a lot of points. The Indonesian gets dropped with 5.5 km to go on the first climb of the day, as it starts to get a bit steeper.
Kennaugh attacks with 1.5 km to climb in order to have a chance of winning the KoM-classification, and that immediately ends the similar dreams of Sequera, who gets dropped up front as well!
Although Novak takes the lead with 1 km to climb, Kennaugh bounces back to grab sixteen points at the top of the first mountain of the day, with 147 km to the finish line! Novak falls back to sixth and grabs four points, which means these are the standings now: Novak 92, Smith 72, Kennaugh 60. If the Brit from cycleYorkshire continues like this, he could very well win the KoM! Sequera at 1’30” and the peloton, led by Team UBS and EA Vesuvio, at 3’.
After their first descent of the day, our seven leaders ( Novak, Kennaugh Salinas, Quita, Nesset, Faglum Karlsson and Valls) start their first ascent of the Puerto de la Morcuera (10.7 km at 5.9%). Sequera has been caught by the peloton, which is at only 2’30” of the leaders. 18 riders have been dropped there, but all outside of the top-100.
It’s no surprise that Quita is the first to get dropped amongst the leaders. 5 km to climb as the peloton is quickly coming closer on him.
Novak himself attacks with 1 km to go! Kennaugh immediately on his wheel, but even coming second in the sprint would be positive for the Isostar rider!
But the last km is quite flat, which suits him more! Novak extends his lead in the KoM-classification by four points, and while Kennaugh jumps to second, Novak is now 36 points ahead of him. Ladies and gentleman, Novak wins the KoM-classification of the Vuelta de España!
The peloton, where Elissonde takes the last two KoM-points, is still only 2’45” behind the leaders with 107 km to go to the finish line. So far only riders outside the top-100 have been dropped, with the exception of Sequera, who had hoped to win the KoM, but now might lose a lot of places in the GC today!
Oh no, strange tactics by Generali’s DS! He sacrifices Masnada (44th) and Bouchard (24th) to bring back Sequera! Incredibly risky move!
Well, at least for now, they have succeeded. Generali’s top-50 riders make it back to the peloton after a short but intensive chase. 83 km to go and a peloton of 139 riders is 2’15” behind the six leaders. Not one team really doing a lot of work in the peloton, but several GC teams doing their bit.
62 km to the finish line as the six leaders start their third ascent of the day. Second time the Puerto de la Morcuera, this time 12.4 km at 6.7%! The peloton at 2’, where Puma and Gazelle are now each putting two/three riders up at the head for domestique duties.
The six leaders remain together with 5 km to climb, while in the peloton Grigrian is setting the pace for Team UBS. The peloton, now at 1’50”, has been reduced to 83 riders. Bad news for Generali, as Masnada, Bouchard and Sequera are amongst those dropped, with other top-50 GC riders including Jensen (40th) and Rosch (45th).
The leading group has been reduced to five riders, as Kennaugh can’t follow them anymore with 4 km left to climb!
KoM-leader and former stage winner Novak can’t follow the pace up front anymore, which leaves us with four leaders at the top of the penultimate climb of the Vuelta!
The peloton, with Vervaeke leading 39 other riders, cross the summit 2’ later! No extra top-30 riders have been dropped though. Less than 50 km to the finish line!
In the descent, Vervaeke, Kruijswijk and Helme work hard to catch Kennaugh and Novak. Our four leaders, Salinas, Nesset, Faglum Karlsson and Valls start the last climb of this Vuelta with an advantage of 40” over the 39-headed peloton! The Puerto de Navacerrada is 9.8 km and has an average gradient of 5.9%!
Swedish champion Faglum Karlsson might have saved the best for the last though, he attacks with 8.5 km to climb and 27 km to the finish line!
Faglum Karlsson doesn’t break down immediately! As there are 5 km to the top, he has a 40” lead over the three chasers, and an additional 30” to the peloton of thirty riders, which is still led by a strong Vervaeke! The latest riders to be dropped there include Novikov (37th), Elissonde (31st) and Helme (39th and third U25). The only U25 rider ahead of the German is leader Godoy in the peloton.
Faglum Karlsson now only 2 km from the top as he increases his lead to 1’ over the three chasers and 1’30” to the peloton of still thirty riders! Red jersey Lecuisinier and biggest rival Tenorio are at the back of the peloton, so it seems the Spaniard has made peace with finishing second in the GC!
20 km to the finish line and 1.5 km to the top of the mountain as Hirt attacks! The Czech quickly passes the three chasers as Tenorio jumps on his wheel! Red jersey Lecuisinier has been put to sleep and is in the middle of the pack! Could it be?! Bongiorno now trying to get a hold of the the Spaniard’s wheel!
Bongiorno does a great job and keeps Tenorio at bay! Hirt gets the room to attack though, he joins Faglum Karlsson with 400 metres to the top! Godoy (16th) and Goos (10th) in trouble because of the attack though!
Hirt and Faglum Karlsson have a 1’15” advantage over the peloton at the top of the mountain, where Bongiorno is now leading the other 27 riders. The two Vesuvio leaders a bit behind them, they might still make it back in the descent!
15 km to go as Hirt leaves a tired Faglum Karlsson behind! The Czech already 1’45” ahead of the peloton, which is exactly the time he needs to overtake Haig and become fifth in the GC! There are of course 20” at the finish as well, so the Bennelong rider should react soon!
His two leaders might be struggling, Kirsch (23rd GC) attacks in the peloton! 10 km to go for Hirt, with Faglum Karlsson at 50”, Kirsch at 2’, the peloton at 2’15” and the two Vesuvio leaders at 2’50”!
Hirt remains comfortably in the lead with 5 km to go, with the same time differences on the clock! One small difference now, as Anacona (25th) gets dropped in the peloton!
Great job by Hirt! His attacking spirit finally gets awarded with a stage win, and possibly a fifth in the GC as well!
45” later, an exhausted Faglum Karlsson crosses the finish line. He might do a good job in the GC as well.
Kirsch stays ahead of the peloton to finish third at 1’52”! This also means Hirt moves up to fifth in GC!
Arndt then wins the sprint for fourth ahead of red jersey Lecuisinier, who wins the Vuelta without any accidents tomorrow! The other top-10 spots go to Sosnitskiy (6th), Tvetcov (7th), Kritskiy (8th), Tenorio (9th) and Formolo (10th). Goos and Godoy lose a minute, which sees the former drop from tenth to thirteenth and the latter from sixteenth to eighteenth.
