Eddie Dunbar (Jayco-AlUla) took a second stage win at this year's Vuelta a España, as a late attack on stage 20 was enough to hold off the group of GC favourites.
The Irishman powered away from a depleted peloton on the upper slopes of the Picón Blanco climb, the final summit finish of the Vuelta and the end of a viciously hard queen stage.
Enric Mas (Movistar) was the next to cross the line at the summit, seven seconds down on Dunbar and three ahead of race leader Primož Roglič (Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe).
Second-placed Ben O'Connor put in a gritty performance to finish sixth, 14 seconds down, which was enough to defend his overall position on a gruelling penultimate stage of this Vuelta - albeit by just nine seconds from Mas.
"This one feels a bit sweeter," Dunbar said afterwards, referring to his previous win on stage 11. "I said to a few people after the stage win last week it was never the way I expected to win a Grand Tour stage. I always imagined winning on the top of the climb. I felt good on the second half of the day and I just backed myself on that climb.
"I knew this climb from a few years ago, we did it in [the Vuelta a] Burgos in 2020. I rode the steep parts pretty hard and rode the flat bits really conservative to make sure I had enough left in the tank.
"I'm 12 minutes down on GC, I knew I'd get a bit of leeway [from the GC teams]. I'm super happy that I could hold on today. The guys did a super job the last few days keeping me out of trouble, they really backed me.
"Moments like this don't come round too often, I've had two of them now in the last two weeks. I'm just looking forward to sharing these moments and celebrating them with friends and family."
HOW IT UNFOLDED
The ‘queen stage’ of this viciously mountainous Vuelta (although there were several other contenders), the penultimate stage of the race featured seven classified climbs including one last summit finish.
Packing 5000m of climbing into 171km, the stage was not only relentlessly up and down but also became steadily harder as it progressed. After a pair of category 3 climbs and a category 2 in the first half, the parcours was dialled up a notch with three first-category climbs and a category 2 crammed into the final 90km of the stage.
The last of these, the nearly 8km Picón Blanco, was the toughest, averaging around 9% but featuring ramps of up to 18%, and would feel even more gruelling coming close to the end of one of the hardest editions of the Vuelta we’ve ever seen.
Last featured in the Vuelta in 2021, the barren and exposed landscape of Picón Blanco is a perennial fixture of the Vuelta a Burgos, and – in ominous news for his red jersey rivals – was the scene of a Primož Roglič stage victory in 2023.
The terrain, and the pace, was punishing from the gun. Several moves went and were reeled in on the uphill drags punctuating the roads leading up to the day’s first categorised climb, the third-category Las Estacas de Trueba.
A ten-man group eventually got clear. King of the mountains Marc Soler and Jay Vine (UAE Team Emirates), Harold Tejada (Astana-Qazastan), Marco Frigo (Israel-Premier Tech), Clément Berthet (Decathlon-AG2R La Mondiale), Jack Haig (Bahrain Victorious), Sylvain Moniquet (Lotto-Dstny), Carlos Canal (Movistar), Enzo Leijnse (dsm-firmenich-PostNL), Thomas Champion (Cofidis), and double stage winner Pablo Castrillo (Equipo Kern Pharma) were allowed a roughly six-minute gap in the early stages of the race.
One of the more intriguing subplots of this edition of the Vuelta has been the inter-UAE Team Emirates battle for the polka-dot jersey, and on the first two categorised climbs it was Vine who took the points to leapfrog team-mate Soler in the classification’s standings. As the climbs got tougher the plot thickened. Soler launched a long-range attack on the category 2 Alto del Caracol, but Vine and Berthet bridged across before the summit, where the Australian took the KOM points.
From there, it was into the valley and time to prepare for the day’s much more arduous second half.
The break began to fragment further and Soler attacked again, taking the maximum 10 points atop the day’s longest climb, the category 1 Portillo de Lunada. Castrillo and Frigo bridged across to the chasing Vine and Berthet, with Vine best of the rest at the summit and his team-mate powering ahead.
Back in the bunch disaster struck for race leader Roglič as domestique Aleksandr Vlasov was distanced early. In an ever bigger blow Dani Martinez abandoned the race, followed a while later by Nico Denz amid rumours of sickness in the Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe camp. The other general classification teams smelled blood as Mikel Landa – who had suffered earlier in the week and dropped to ninth overall – put his team-mates on the front.
Soler was caught by his former breakaway companions on the 30km descent after the category 2 Portillo de la Sia, with him and Vine tied-first on 71 mountains points going into the final double-header of first-category climbs. The Spaniard then cracked on the lower slopes of the 11km Puerto de Los Tornos and Vine appeared to target the stage win – although the chances of the break hanging on looked vanishingly slim.
Soudal Quick-Step’s Mattia Cattaneo split the peloton on the Puerto de Los Tornos, catching most of the group off guard and taking only leader Mikel Landa, Roglič and two Bora team-mates with him. The majority of the GC hopefuls eventually managed to tag back on, with the notable exception of white jersey contender Carlos Rodríguez.
The breakaway was caught with 32km to go but Vine, against all the odds, held on to snatch two points atop the Puerto de Los Tornos to win the mountains jersey.
His team-mate Pavel Sivakov – who had attacked further down the climb – and Enric Mas were the main beneficiaries of bonus seconds at the summit, and Sivakov entered the final 20km with a minute’s advantage over the depleted peloton. Rather than a full-on descent, a short downhill and stretch of flat separated the Puerto de Los Tornos from the Picón Blanco, giving the riders little time to recover before the most demanding climb of all.
CLIMBING THE PICÓN BLANCO
The punishing gradients of the Picón Blanco, starting around 10%, immediately made their mark on the red jersey group as Adam Yates and Skjelmose were spat out the back. A serene-looking Roglič and team-mate Florian Lipowitz set the pace and strung out the bunch, but stalemate ensued as none of the main threats were distanced for good, each doggedly clawing back on.
Eddie Dunbar took advantage of the stalemate to attack and tagged Sivakov with a little over 3km to go. Inside the final 3km he surged past the Frenchman and the sustained effort began to take its toll on the red jersey group, with Carapaz and O’Connor among those unable to hold the wheel. Alone, Dunbar powered into the clouds, nearly 1500m above sea level and with just 13 seconds' advantage in the final kilometre.
Landa attacked one more time and it looked like victory could be snatched from Dunbar at the death, but as the favourites neutralised each other he had just enough left in the tank to seal victory.
Mas and Roglič were within ten seconds of him and the Slovenian’s grip on the leader’s jersey appears unassailable ahead of the final day time-trial. He leads by 2:02 and looks likely to extend that advantage in the time trial in Madrid, but the battle for the podium places behind him remains red-hot.
Rodríguez was the major victim of the day, tumbling to 10th overall and losing five minutes, with Lipowitz, Landa, and Sivakov all moving up at his expense and Skjelmose remaining in the white jersey. Carapaz lost some ground, finishing just outside the bonus seconds in fourth, and O’Connor fought valiantly to maintain his podium spot with just one stage remaining and the margins razor-thin.
RESULTS
VUELTA A ESPAÑA 2024, Stage 20: Villarcayo > Picón Blanco (171km)
1. Eddie Dunbar (Irl) Jayco-AlUla, in 04:38:37
2. Enric Mas (Spa) Movistar, +7s
3. Primož Roglič (Slo) Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe, +10s
4. Richard Carapaz (Ecu) EF Education-EasyPost, +12s
5. Urko Berrade (Spa) Equipo Kern Pharma, +14s
6. Ben O'Connor (Aus) Decathlon AG2R La Mondiale, same time
7. David Gaudu (Fra) Groupama-FDJ, +21s
8. Mikel Landa (Spa) Soudal Quick-Step, +23s
9. Florian Lipowitz (Ger) Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe, +37s
10. Mattias Skjelmose (Den) Lidl-Trek, same time
GENERAL CLASSIFICATION AFTER STAGE 20
1. Primož Roglič (Slo) Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe, in 81:22:19
2. Ben O'Connor (Aus) Decathlon-AG2R La Mondiale, +2:02
3. Enric Mas (Spa) Movistar, +2:11
4. Richard Carapaz (Ecu) EF Education-EasyPost, +3:00
5. David Gaudu (Fra) Groupama-FDJ, +4:48
6. Mattias Skjelmose (Den) Lidl-Trek, +5:18
7. Florian Lipowitz (Ger) Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe, +6:26
8. Mikel Landa (Spa) Soudal Quick-Step, +6:57
9. Pavel Sivakov (Fra) UAE-Team Emirates, +8:50
10. Carlos Rodríguez (Spa) Ineos Grenadiers, +10:31
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