Australia’s king of the mountains doubles up in Vuelta
Glenn Moore |
Jay Vine has said he will never get used to winning a stage in La Vuelta, but after two wins in five days and four individual victories in the Spanish grand tour overall, it is becoming a lovely habit.
The Queenslander cycled away from a breakaway with five km left of stage ten, riding solo to the summit finish at the Pyrenean ski resort of El Ferial Larra Belagua.
“Winning is so, so hard and it is such an incredible feeling when it happens, I don’t think I will ever get used to it,” said Vine. “It’s unbelievably hard.”
Behind him race favourite Jonas Vingegaard (Visma-Lease a Bike) reclaimed the leader’s red jersey from Torstein Traeen (Bahrain Victorious), gaining 63 seconds on the Norwegian who was dropped on the climb.
Vingegaard is now 26 seconds ahead of Traeen in the general classification with Vine’s UAE Team Emirates-XRG teammate Joao Almeida third, 12 seconds further back.
West Australian Jai Hindley (Red Bull-BORA-hansgrohe) came in seventh, like Vingegaard 1.05 behind Vine, and is now eighth in the GC, 2:16 behind the leader.
Vine’s victory stretched his lead in his defence of the king of the mountains jersey he won last year to 23 points over Louis Vervaeke (Soudal-QuickStep).
The 29-year-old, who punched the air as he crossed the finish line, was rewarded for seizing hold of a 175.3 km ride from Parque de la Naturaleza Sendaviva that took a long time to catch light.
“I was just trying to follow the big groups, but then, I think at the two-hour mark, I called on the radio, ‘guys it’s not happening – save for tomorrow’,” he said.
“Then there was a crash I got stuck behind, then we kept jumping for 45 minutes.”
Vine finally got into a breakaway that was initially 30-strong, but gradually thinned out as the final 9.9km climb to 1,590m above sea level began.
At that stage Alec Segaert (Lotto) was 45 seconds clear, but the group caught him with seven km left and Pablo Castrillo attacked. Vine soon caught and passed him, and once he was clear there was no catching the Aussie.
“I didn’t want to drag everyone up the climb so I tried playing a bit of possum at the bottom and was able to attack my way across to the other riders,” said Vine.
“The final climb was the hardest part of the race, after I dropped Pablo it was just grit my teeth to the end.”
Castrillo came second, 35 seconds behind, and his Movistar teammate Javier Romo third.
Vine’s victory was just what his team needed after Tuesday began with an incendiary interview by Juan Ayuso, who was furious at his end-of-season release being announced on the previous day’s rest day.
Ayuso accused UAE Team Emirates-XRG of being “more like a dictatorship” claiming the management had reneged on an unwritten agreement to hold the news until the Vuelta ends on September 14.
“I think that it’s clear why they’ve done it, to try and harm my image again,” said the 22-year-old.
Stage 11 is a 157.4km leg starting and finishing in Bilbao taking in the category two 403m Alto del Vivero twice amid five category three climbs as it winds around the mountainous Basque Country.
AAP
