Michael Woods showed both his impressive climbing chops and his tactical patience, outlasting and outriding his many companions in a day-long breakaway to take a well-deserved stage win on the steep Puerto de Ancares summit finish on stage 13 of the Vuelta a España.
Woods’ victory was a masterclass in both tactics and pacing. After joining a 23-rider move that went clear early in the race, the Israel-Premier Tech climber patiently waited as others like UAE Team Emirates’ Marc Soler made probing attacks on the climbs en route to the finish, letting them play out their efforts and waiting for the sustained double-digit gradients of the Ancares before going clear with 5 km to go. It was less attack and more steady pacing as the Canadian national champion winched himself clear of the pursuit and soloed to victory.
Behind in the group of GC contenders, it was Movistar and Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe making the aggressive moves. Both Enric Mas and Primož Roglič emerged for their respective teams, in an elite group of four along with T-Rex-Soudal’s Mikel Landa and defending Vuelta champ Sepp Kuss (Visma-Lease a Bike) before Roglič ground his rivals off his wheel. At the finish, he put :30 into Landa, roughly a minute into Mas and Kuss, and two into red jersey Ben O’Connor (Decathlon-Ag2r La Mondiale). The Aussie retains his race lead but is bleeding time with over a week of tough racing to come.
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How it happened
- With several smaller early climbs and a succession of more ascents at the back of the stage, the 176 km ride from Lugo to Puerto de Ancares was tailor-made for a break and the pack knew it. A large group of 23 got clear in the early going, with UAE best represented by Soler, Jay Vine, and stage 1 winner Brandon McNulty.
- The Decathlon-led pack was in no mood for a hard chase and the large break eventually got a 16-minute lead before things began to break up in the final third of the stage. Victor Campenaerts (Lotto Dstny) tried a long-range move, followed by green jersey Wout van Aert (Visma) and then Soler.
- With the numbers, UAE was particularly aggressive, with Vine also attacking on the setup ascent of the Cat 2 Puerto de Lumeras. But as the lead group dwindled to a handful of riders, disaster struck on the descent as McNulty crashed hard on a high-speed right-hand bend and Vine, behind him, also went down. Vine was up fairly quickly but McNulty slid well off the road and required a concussion check before being cleared to continue.
- With UAE’s advantage now gone, it was left to Soler to try to recatch the leading quartet, down to Van Aert, Woods, Sam Oomen (Lidl-Trek) and Jayco-AlUla’s Mauro Schmid. It was Schmid who went first on the Ancares ascent, and Woods quickly followed as the duo distanced the others and Woods then pried himself free for the solo win.
- Behind, Movistar did much of the late chasing in a bid to set up Mas. But Red Bull took over on the low slopes of the Ancares, and when Roglič went clear with just Mas and Kuss for company (and then Landa) it quickly became evident that the three-time Vuelta champion was on an excellent day as he rode the rest off his wheel.
I’m on cloud nine right now. My big goal was to win a race with this jersey. I’ve had a tough season with illness; I’ve had a tough race in terms of bad luck, a lot of mechanicals and crashes, so this is a big moment of catharsis and release.
Woods on the emotional significance of his win.
Brief analysis
- Woods is not a prolific winner as a pro and critics sometimes ding him a bit for both tactics and his descending ability. But today he put together a first-class work of both to get the well-deserved win. He was patient with the attacks, biding his time as UAE forced the issue. While he said McNulty and Vine’s crash scared him, he didn’t let it rattle the rest of his descent, and while his successful escape was more prompted by Schmid’s own attack, he picked the perfect moment to go clear and use his superior climbing abilities to full advantage.
- For UAE, stage 13 was a microcosm of their up-and-down Vuelta. With 20 km to go they had not just the numbers advantage but one of strength, with Vine and McNulty in the lead group and Soler playing a foil role with his attack. That all went literally sideways with the crash, and while both riders were able to continue it wouldn’t be a surprise to see McNulty DNS Saturday with unknown injuries. For Vine as well, a crash carries particular resonance after his long and difficult recovery from serious injuries in the mass crash on stage 4 of Itzulia last spring.
- In terms of GC, Roglič is steadily chopping, not chipping, away at O’Connor’s lead and now stands just 1:21 away from the red jersey. There are four summit finishes to come, including Sunday’s fearsome Cuitu Negru, and of course the final time trial in Madrid. Roglič looks the class of the GC field on climbs (albeit not head-and-shoulders above), and has a strong team including the young Florian Lipowitz.
- Meanwhile, Decathlon appeared to tacitly accept reality today. After sticking with O’Connor early on the Ancares, Felix Gall was apparently turned loose for his own objectives. It was arguably a curious choice for the team: while Gall is a talented climber, he’s in only eighth place overall himself (now three minutes and change adrift of Roglič, and there was no stage win to fight for. Even with that, he was only 48 seconds ahead of his team leader at the finish. Maybe on those steeps a pacemaker would have made no difference for O’Connor but the team’s choices sent a message: it clearly believes it’s renting the jersey rather than buying.
- Elsewhere on GC, Mas and Richard Carapaz (EF Education-EasyPost) appear locked in a gritty fight for the other podium places, with Landa and O’Connor also in the mix. For Kuss, a brief ray of hope – coming one year to the day after “GC Kuss” ignited with his stage 6 win and race lead in the 2023 Vuelta – dimmed a bit after his initial bid to join Roglič fizzled out. He’s 15th on GC, more than six minutes behind his former teammate.
- Looking further ahead, Van Aert’s performances at the Vuelta are likely to position him as a major favorite for the World Road Championships in one month. The lumpy course around Zurich has lots of climbing in short ascents of moderate gradients, and while it also suits Remco Evenepoel, the Belgian team managed dual leaders smoothly at the Olympics.
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