An extraordinary first! An unprecedented summit finish on the slopes of Pico Jano, at the end of stage 6 of La Vuelta 22, has seen Jay Vine (Alpecin-Deceuninck) rise to a maiden Grand Tour stage win just ahead of Remco Evenepoel (Quick-Step Alpha Vinyl). Through the fog, the young star takes La Roja from Rudy Molard (Groupama-FDJ) with a gap of 21’’. He is the first Belgian leader of the Spanish Grand Tour since Dylan Teuns took the red jersey after stage 6 of La Vuelta 19. Enric Mas (Movistar) was Evenepoel’s closest rival. Juan Ayuso (UAE Team Emirates) showed his budding talent while Primoz Roglic (Jumbo-Visma) lost over a minute.
Following skirmishes on the ascents of the Basque country, the peloton of La Vuelta 22 head to the first proper mountains with a cat-2 and two cat-1 ascents on the way to the unprecedented summit finish at Pico Jano. 178 riders start as Jan Hirt (Intermarché-Wanty-Gobert Matériaux) has to withdraw after returning a positive test to Covid-19.
Molard’s teammates control the break
After 14km of battles, ten riders manage to open a gap of 34’’ to the bunch: Ruben Fernandez (Cofidis), Mark Padun (EF Education-EasyPost), Jan Bakelants (Intermarché-Wanty-Gobert), Nelson Oliveira (Movistar), Fausto Masnada (Quick-Step Alpha Vinyl), Kaden Groves (BikeExchange-Jayco), Marco Brenner (Team DSM), Dario Cataldo (Trek-Segafredo), Xandro Meurisse (Alpecin-Deceuninck) and Xabier Mikel Azparren (Euskaltel-Euskadi).
Rudy Molard’s Groupama-FDJ drive the bunch and the gap hits a maximum of 5’50’’ atop the first climb of the day, the cat-2 Puerto de Alisas (summit at km 77.7). At that point, Jan Bakelants leads the virtual standings as he was only 5’02’’ down on GC at the start of the day. But the peloton up the pace on the downhill.
The race explodes up La Collada de Brenes
Rémi Cavagna (Quick-Step Alpha Vinyl) also participates in the chase on the valley towards the cat-1 ascent of Collada de Brenes (km 145.8). And Ineos Grenadiers up the ante just ahead of the climb. The gap is down to 2’ at the bottom.
The race explodes on the ascent. With 5km to go to the summit, Mark Padun drops all his breakaway companions. Remco Evenepoel’s Quick-Step Alpha Vinyl set a hard pace in the bunch, so hard that Rudy Molard is dropped inside the last 2km of ascent. At the summit, Padun is 1’ ahead of Fernandez, closely followed by Masnada. The bunch trail by 1’50’’ and Molard is 50’’ further behind.
Vine and Evenepoel set off
On wet roads, Padun drops time on the descent. As he enters the last 15km, he is the last attacker still ahead of the bunch, with a lead of 55’’. A kilometre later, Molard returns to the bunch just ahead of the final ascent with the help of Quentin Pacher.
Jay Vine (Alpecin-Deceuninck) sets off in pursuit with 10km to go… And Remco Evenepoel ups the pace a couple of kilometres later. The young Belgian rider drops everyone except for Mas.
Vine resists, Evenepoel impresses
Vine catches Padun and drops him with 6.5km to go. At that point, he has a 25’’ gap to Evenepoel, who sets a brutal pace to open significant GC gaps while Primoz Roglic tries to limit his losses, with the likes of Pavel Sivakov (Ineos Grenadiers), Simon Yates (BikeExchange-Jayco) and Jai Hindley (Bora-Hansgrohe) on his wheel.
At the summit, Vine holds on to a margin of 15’’ ahead of Evenepoel, who takes the overall leadership. Mas finishes 3rd (+16’’), ahead of his young compatriot Juan Ayuso (UAE Team Emirates, +55’’). Roglic leads the rest of the GC contenders with a gap of 1’37’’.
