Kern Pharma’s historic haul in La Vuelta 24 is up to three stage wins after Urko Berrade powered to victory on day 18, in Maeztu, following Pablo Castrillo’s successes at Manzaneda and Cuitu Negru. The 26 year-old Spaniard got the better of his breakaway companions after a very animated stage on Basque roads, with Mauro Schmid (Jayco AlUla) coming 2nd, ahead of another Kern Pharma rider, Pau Miquel. Spaniards are up to 4 stage wins, their best tally in an edition of La Vuelta since 2019. The GC battle was also very lively, ahead of two major mountain showdowns. Richard Carapaz (EF Education-EasyPost) put the hammer down with 50 kilometres to go and Mikel Landa (T-Rex Quick-Step) lost more than 3 minutes.
Today marks the 28th La Vuelta stage start and the 25th finish in the province of Alava, with an undulating course from Vitoria-Gasteiz to Maeztu-Parque Natural de Izki: 2,780m of elevation over 179.3km. It looks like the last chance for riders who aren’t expert of the high mountains or the time trial…
A non-stop battle
And it leads to a massive battle for the breakaway. No less than 42 riders get away after more than 50 kilometres of battle. The peloton trail by 3’12’’ at km 60…
But Euskaltel-Euskadi have no rider at the front, for their home stage, so they drive an intense chase. The gap drops down to 1’35’’ on the slopes of the first ascent of the cay, the cat-2 Alto de Rivas de Tereso (summit at km 81.5).
Mikel Bizkarra and Gotzon Martin set off in pursuit, with a few more counter-attackers, but it’s too late to bridge the gap to the earlier attackers.
Küng anticipates
Marc Soler (UAE Team Emirates) goes first at the summit and Stefan Küng (Groupama-FDJ) attacks on the downhill. Mathias Vacek (Lidl-Trek) and Mauro Schmid (Jayco AlUla) join him on the move.
They open a gap of 1 minute over their chasers en route to the second ascent of the day, the cat-1 Puerto Herrera. Meanwhile, the gap to the peloton increases to over 10 minutes.
The lead trio are caught by 10 chasers on the ascent: Steven Kruijswijk (Visma-Lease a Bike), Marc Soler (UAE Team Emirates), Mattia Cattaneo (T-Rex Quick-Step), Aleksandr Vlasov (Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe), Oier Lazkano (Movistar), Max Poole (DSM-Firmenich-PostNL), Ion Izagirre (Cofidis), Urko Berrade, Pablo Castrillo and Pau Miquel (Kern Pharma).
Berrade wins, Landa loses
On the same ascent, EF Education-EasyPost up the ante and Richard Carapaz attacks towards the summit (km 134.3). Ben O’Connor (Decathlon AG2R La Mondiale) is momentarily dropped but he quickly bridges the gap… Mikel Landa (T-Rex Quick-Step) doesn’t.
After a move by Kruijswijk, Berrade counter-attacks with 5.5km to go and makes it all the way to the line, 4’’ ahead of Schmid and Miquel. Far behind, Landa loses 3’20’’ on his GC rivals and drops down to 10th in the overall standings.
