Jonas Vingegaard launches uphill attack to win stage 16 – Vuelta a Espana

Vuelta a Espana 2023

Stage 16

Jonas Vingegaard (Jumbo-Visma) moved into second overall at the Vuelta a España after powering away from the field up the final climb to Bejes to take stage 16 ahead of Finn Fisher-Black (UAE Team Emirates) and Wout Poels (Bahrain-Victorious).

The Dane attacked 3.9km from the line with Fisher-Black the first rider to respond, but the Kiwi was unable to hold the pace and stop the two-time Tour de France winner from taking his second stage win of this year’s race.

In the group behind, Roglič and race leader Sepp Kuss (Jumbo-Visma) let their teammate go with the Slovenian only launching his attack in the final kilometre to keep it close, but this acceleration put the red jersey in difficulty.

Vingegaard and his team were greeted with the horrific news this morning that their teammate Nathan Van Hooydonck had been involved in a serious car accident, and the Dane honoured his friend with the victory after receiving positive news about his condition.

“I’m just happy to win today,” said Vingegaard after the stage. “We had some terrible news this morning and I wanted to win for my best friend today and luckily now there is good news about it, about his condition so that’s a big relief for me, for the team and I hope he will recover soon.”

He was also quick to squash any suggestion of him trying to take red from his teammate Kuss on tomorrow’s brutally tough mountain stage.

“I don’t know,” Vingegaard said. “Now I just want to enjoy this moment and not think about it.”

Kuss lost time to his two teammates but held onto the red jersey ahead of the huge GC test promised on tomorrow’s summit finish up the fabled Alto de L’Angliru with teammates Vingegaard and Roglič still occupying the other podium spots 29 seconds and 1:33 down respectively.

Racing returned in the third week of the Vuelta in Cantabria and so did the rain, but it didn’t deter the attack with the likes of Kaden Groves (Alpecin-Deceuninck) and Andreas Kron (Lotto-Dstny) the most active in attack from the flag dropping.

As the rain stopped, a group of ten containing Groves and Romain Grégoire (Groupama-FDJ) did find separation and gained as big of a bag as 48 seconds.

Ineos Grenadiers made their intentions clear having missed the early move as they put the whole team to work in pursuit of the stage win, eventually ending the early break’s day out front with under 80km left to ride.

The heavens reopened once it came back together as did the attacks with most teams interested in investing, clearly fresh from the rest day and trying to get something out of the final six stages.

Groves got away once more, this time with Mattia Cattaneo (Soudal-QuickStep), Max Poole (DSM-Firmenich), Otto Vergaerde (Lidl-Trek) and Lorenzo Germani (Groupama-FDJ) for company, but they were given little breathing room before being chased down.

The green jersey didn’t give up, however, and finally found daylight after 60km of all-out racing with Cattaneo, Poole, Julius van den Berg (EF Education-EasyPost), Joel Nicolau (Caja Rural-Seguros RGA) and Nicolas Prodhomme (AG2R-Citroën).

Jumbo-Visma soon assumed their position at the front of the peloton and showed their clear plan for the day by putting Robert Gesink to work and ensuring the time gap went no further than 1:30.

Groves reached his virtual finish line at the intermediate sprint into Unquera and immediately sat up having extended his lead in the points classification to 93 from Remco Evenepoel (Soudal-QuickStep), which signalled an end to any chance at the stage victory for the remaining escapees.

There was a rapid approach to the foot of the final climb with Jumbo-Visma, Movistar and Bora-Hansgrohe leading the way on damp roads ahead of the explosive uphill finale.

Attila Valter (Jumbo-Visma) picked it up with the top three on GC all in his wheel with 5km remaining in the stage, forcing Juan Ayuso (UAE Team Emirates) to better his position with the threat of a Jumbo-Visma attack imminent.

Vingegaard was the first to bite and would explode out of the group 3.9km from the line with Roglič and Kuss simply challenging anyone to try and bridge the gap which only Fisher-Black would do.

Behind the games began with the other GC favourites calling Jumbo-Visma’s bluff and only launching attacks in the final 1500 metres, not taking the bait. The likes of Joao Almeida (UAE Team Emirates) and Bauke Mollema (Lidl-Trek) were among them, but none would make any impression on the Dane’s lead.

The first significant challenge came internally, with Roglič perhaps seeing his chance to win the Vuelta disappearing up the road and attacking in the final kilometre, which forced Enric Mas (Movistar), Ayuso and Kuss into survival mode.

Kuss started to struggle and eventually lost touch with the Slovenian, crossing the line with a deficit to both his teammates and ceding 1:15 to Vingegaard and 4 seconds to Roglič respectively.

Jumbo-Visma head into the penultimate high mountain stage still in a dominant position with Kuss 2:33 ahead of the first non-Jumbo-Visma rider, Ayuso, in fourth but Vingegaard is now only 29 seconds behind the American overall and will be on his favourite terrain up the Angliru tomorrow so the internal battle could continue.