Maeztu-Parque Natural de Izki, Thursday, September 5th 2024
Kern Pharma’s historic haul in La Vuelta 24 is up to three stage wins after Urko Berrade Fernandez powered to victory on day 18, in Maeztu, following Pablo Castrillo Zapater’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 (Team Jayco AlUla) coming 2nd, ahead of another Kern Pharma rider, Pau Miquel Delgado. Spaniards have now claimed four stage wins, their best tally in an edition of La Vuelta since 2019. The GC battle was also very lively, ahead of two majors 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 led to a massive battle for the breakaway. No less than 42 riders got away after more than 50 kilometres of battle. The peloton trail by 3’12’’ at km 60…
But Euskaltel-Euskadi had no rider at the front, for their home stage, so they drove an intense chase. The gap dropped 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 was too late to bridge the gap to the earlier attackers.
Küng anticipates
Marc Soler (UAE Team Emirates) went first at the summit and Stefan Küng (Groupama-FDJ) attacked on the downhill. Mathias Vacek (Lidl-Trek) and Mauro Schmid (Jayco AlUla) joined him on the move.
They opened 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 increased to over 10 minutes.
The lead trio were 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 upped the ante and Richard Carapaz attacked towards the summit (km 134.3). Ben O’Connor (Decathlon AG2R La Mondiale) was momentarily dropped but he quickly bridged the gap… Mikel Landa (T-Rex Quick-Step) doesn’t.
After a move by Kruijswijk, Berrade counter-attacked with 5.5km to go and made it all the way to the line, 4’’ ahead of Schmid and Miquel. Far behind, Landa lost 3’20’’ on his GC rivals and dropped down to 10th in the overall standings.
Stage 18
- Urko Berrade Fernandez (Equipo Kern Pharma) in 4h00’52’’
- Mauro Schmid (Team Jayco AlUla) at 04’’
- Pau Miquel Delgado (Equipo Kern Pharma) at 04’’
GC
- Ben O’Connor (Decathlon AG2R La Mondiale Team) 72h48’46’’
- Primoz Roglic (Red Bull-BORA-hansgrohe) + 05’’
- Enric Mas (Movistar Team) + 1’25’’
