Jay is the wizard from Oz on the La Vuelta slopes
Jay Vine and Remco Evenepoel provided more impressive climbing performances on the slopes up Collau Fancuaya yesterday, a gruelling ascent with gradients up to 19% at the end of Stage Eight of La Vuelta 22.
Australian rising star Vine dropped all his breakaway companions, including the likes of Marc Soler and Thibaut Pinot, to take his second win in three days of racing.
Through the fog, Evenepoel set a brutal pace only Enric Mas and Primoz Roglic could follow.
171 riders started after the withdrawals of Nikias Arndt, Mark Donovan (Team DSM), Jake Stewart (Groupama-FDJ) and Anthony Delaplace (Arkéa-Samsic).
Alexey Lutsenko was the first attacker of the day. His move unleashes a flurry of attacks as the riders quickly hit the first slopes up the cat-2 Alto de La Colladona (summit at km 9.8).
Richard Carapaz and Alejandro Valverde were among the many riders on the early move, already forcing Remco Evenepoel’s Quick-Step Alpha Vinyl to chase hard.
At the summit, Vine took the five points to lead the KOM standings, with Marc Soler closely following him.
Vine kept racking up the KOM points up the cat-2 Alto de La Mozqueta, cat-3 Alto de Santo Emiliano and cat-3 Puerto de Tenebreo.
Over the penultimate climb of the day, the cat-3 Peralvia, Vine had all but secured the polka dots, while Mads Pedersen made the most of the intermediate sprint to chase the green jersey with a total of 147 points, five more than Sam Bennett had at the start of the stage.
Vine went solo with 6km to go. Marc Soler, Rein Taaramäe and Thibaut Pinot were his fiercest chasers but they all come short while Remco Evenepoel set off inside the last 3km of ascent.
Enric Mas was able to follow him, like he did up Pico Jano.
This time, Roglic was also up there but the rest of the GC contenders were dealt a new blow by the young Belgian star who crossed the line 1’20’’ after Vine did.
▪ Adam Yates (Ineos Grenadiers) won the third stage of the Deutschland Tour up to the Schauinsland.
The Briton was 19 seconds ahead of Pello Bilbao (Bahrain Victorious) and thus also took over the red jersey of the overall leader.
Mauri Vansevenant (Quick-Step Alpha Vinyl Team) came in third place, 28 seconds behind Yates.