Jonas Vingegaard claimed stage nine victory in the Vuelta a Espana on Sunday with a strong finish which helped him eat away at Torstein Traen’s general classification lead.
The Danish star, favourite to win the Grand Tour, also earned nearly half-a-minute on his likely closest contender Team UAE’s Joao Almeida.
Visma-Lease a Bike’s Vingegaard had said he and his team were saving their legs for the second and third weeks, but took two minutes out of Traen and trails by just 37 seconds overall.
It took a long time for the day’s break to form on the hilly 195.5 kilometres ride from Alfaro to the Valdezcaray ski resort, with several attacks quickly reeled in.
Five riders, including Michal Kwiatkowski, eventually carved out a two-and-a-half minute lead on the peloton although there were no general classification contenders in the break.
They were swallowed up as they reached the day’s only categorised climb to finish the race.
Two-time Tour de France winner Vingegaard went solo with 10 kilometres remaining, chased by Almeida and Briton Tom Pidcock.
Traen crossed the line under two minutes behind Vingegaard and retains the red jersey. Almeida is third overall, one minute 15 behind Traen, while Pidcock is fourth after one of his best climbing performances.
“I felt super great today, and then on the last climb, I also felt really good, and I (asked) my team if they could speed up, and they did so I tried,” said Vingegaard.
“They did super well. That was amazing team work, and I was really happy that I could finish it off. I couldn’t do it without them…
“Maybe I didn’t do my homework good enough because I thought it was closer to the finish when I attacked, and I was a bit surprised when I saw the ten kilometre banner… but at that moment I had the gap, and I had to keep going.”
Monday is a rest day for the riders before a largely flat stage 10 on Tuesday, which stretches 175 kilometres from Sendaviva natural park to the ski resort in Larra-Belagua.
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