The ascent of the Alto del 14% led to an extremely disputed finale towards Cordoba, where Wout van Aert (Visma-Lease a Bike) eventually took his second stage win in La Vuelta (his first road stage victory in Spain), on day 7 of the 2024 edition. Primoz Roglic’s Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe rode aggressively. Marc Soler (UAE Team Emirates) launched a daring attack, only to be reeled in with 3.5km to go due to the efforts of Sepp Kuss (Visma-Lease a Bike)… And Van Aert eventually powered to victory ahead of Mathias Vacek (Lidl-Trek) and Pau Miquel (Kern Pharma). Despite the many attacks, Ben O’Connor (Decathlon AG2R La Mondiale) made it safely through his first day with La Roja, ahead of another demanding stage towards Cazorla.
After Ben O’Connor’s heroic ride in the Sierra de Malaga, the peloton of La Vuelta 24 spends another day in Andalusia, starting from Archidona, in the Provincia de Malaga, and heading to Cordoba (180.2km) with the emblematic Alto del 14% in the finale. 169 riders start the stage, after Andreas Kron (Lotto Dstny) and Damiano Caruso (Bahrain Victorious) abandon with physical issues.
In this peloton, Xabier Isasa (Euskaltel-Euskadi) immediately attacks to make it his second breakaway day in La Vuelta 24. But this time, he is alone at the front. The young Spaniard pushes his lead up to 8’25’’ (km 45) before Kaden Groves’ Alpecin-Deceuninck and Wout van Aert’s Visma-Lease a Bike work together at the front of the bunch to control the gap.
A brutal pace up and down the Alto del 14%
The Basque attacker is caught with 38km to go, just ahead of the ascent of the day (cat-2, 7.4km at 5.6%). Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe set a brutal pace and Primoz Roglic goes first at the summit (6 bonus seconds), leading a group down to some 25 riders.
Attacks kept flying over the top, until Marc Soler (UAE Team Emirates) managed to open a gap with 21km to go. The Spaniard manages to get 20 seconds ahead but Sepp Kuss (Visma-Lease a Bike) pulls for Van Aert. Soler is reeled in with 3.5km to go. Pavel Sivakov (UAE Team Emirates) counter-attacks but the reduced bunch get him with 500 metres to go and nobody can resist Van Aert’s power.
