Kaden Groves was the surprise winner of stage 14 of the Vuelta a España, a 200.5-kilometre slog with 2,876 metres of climbing, including two categorised climbs. What worked in his favour, though, was the nature of the final Cat.1 ascent whose status was earned based more on its length than its grade – 22.8 km at 4.5% – and which preceded a fast descent to the flat finish.
Groves also benefited from the work of Visma-Lease a Bike which worked all day to keep Wout van Aert in contention for a potential fourth stage win, the points classification and the KOM jersey, which he’s added to his goals after a few good days in the breakaway.
In the end, it was a fairly simple day out for the Vuelta peloton. A six-man breakaway very quickly saw its hopes evaporate as they were kept in check by the bunch, and the GC remained very much intact before Sunday’s big mountain stage. The only drama was experienced by Primož Roglič (Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe) who was forced to swap his bike with shorter teammate Dani Martínez early in the final descent, but he was soon back in the pack and safe for another day.
How it happened:
- The battle for the breakaway took a long time to play out with several small groups getting a small amount of daylight before being hauled back in by a motivated peloton which had eyes on the finish line.
- Eventually, a strong six-rider group broke clear: Isaac del Toro (UAE Team Emirates), Jhonatan Narváez (Ineos Grenadiers), Xandro Meurisse (Alpecin-Deceuninck), Marco Frigo (Israel-Premier Tech) and Harold Tejada (Astana-Qazaqstan). The sextet might have dared to dream if they’d looked ahead to Sunday’s GC day, but the peloton never let them get more than about two and a half minutes.
- By the foot of the final climb, it was clear that the breakaway would likely not make it to the Cat.1 summit before the peloton, let alone the finish line that came 16.4 downhill kilometres later.
- Sure enough, the escapers seemed – rather than to go pop – to call it one by one as the Visma-led peloton bore down, and Narváez was the last man caught three kilometres from the summit with about 19 km left to race.
- The peloton was still substantial, and Van Aert in particular was a looming figure in the Skoda “green” of points classification leader. The three-time stage winner also owns the big blue polka-dots of KOM, but Marc Soler was looking after them on stage 14.
- With two kilometres left of the climb, the gradient stable at 4.5% as the race entered the clouds,
SoudalT-Rex-QuickStep moved to the front and picked up the pace, but Mattea Cattaneo’s acceleration did little but stretch out the bunch before the descent. - And Van Aert nipped out of third wheel to take maximum mountain points at the top of the Puerto de Leitariegos, but showed no interest in pushing on down the descent.
- Roglič, apparently a magnet for drama, suffered a mechanical early in the descent and found himself chasing hard over half a minute behind the speeding peloton on a bike that was too small for him, but frankly there was never any concern – no more than usual when Roglič is descending – and the lower centre of gravity forced by Dani Martínez’s bike won’t have harmed his descending speed too much (the Colombian is about 5 cm shorter than his team leader, though that in itself is an insufficient metric to truly judge their size difference).
- The Slovenian caught the back of the peloton about 10 km from the finish, just as there was a lull at the front of the peloton, where Lidl-Trek was particularly visible. Emerging from just behind their cheerful jerseys, though, was a mass of denim blue as Alpecin-Deceuninck made themselves visible for the first time since Meurisse had called it a day in the breakaway. Among their number: sprinter Kaden Groves.
- The Australian’s team was completely in charge in the run-in, with what looked like many more riders than any other sprint teams, though many were still in the picture including stage 5-winner Pavel Bittner (DSM-firmenich PostNL), and nearly men Corbin Strong (Israel-Premier Tech) and Mathias Vacek (Lidl-Trek) who’ve both come close in earlier sprint stages.
- DSM-firmenich PostNL shepherded Bittner to the front in the last 1500 metres and led under the flamme rouge, but Alpecin-Deceuncinck was back in control coming into the crucial final left-hander 500 metres from the line.
- Groves was primed to launch in second wheel, Van Aert sitting just behind him, but the Australian, clearly the fresher man, was fastest in the slightly uphill gallop. Van Aert’s green jersey lead didn’t suffer too much damage with a tight second on the line, and Corbin Strong (Israel-Premier Tech) sprung out of the pack to take third.
- With stage 14 turning into a day for the sprinters, the GC contenders got a relative day off, albeit with almost 3,000 metres of climbing over 200.5 kilometres, and race leader Ben O’Connor still holds 1:21 over Roglič heading into Sunday’s challenging summit finish.
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Quotes of the day
It feels really good. I didn’t actually expect today to be a sprint as it was, but Visma controlled it. To have a man-on-man sprint against Wout is pretty awesome … The team did a great job. Edward [Plankaert] again, did a good lead out, like he did in Seville, but today, I didn’t hesitate, and I think I did a really good sprint. It felt like quite a bit of a drag race against Wout, but in the end, it was good enough to beat him.”
Groves said after stage 14
When I look at today, we did a great job. No other team dared to check it. We did it, we made it a sprint. It’s a shame I couldn’t finish it, but it was very good teamwork.”
Van Aert said at the finish, telling Eurosport that second was a ‘bitter pill to swallow’ after his team worked all day.
Brief analysis
- Van Aert may have been unable to finish the job – “To miss out on the win is a bitter pill to swallow.” – but Visma-Lease a Bike justifiably earn the credit for bringing stage 14 to the conclusion we witnessed. Groves himself cited the work of Van Aert’s teammates on the final climb as key to his making it to the finish, preventing any opportunistic moves on a climb that frankly wasn’t steep enough for an attack anyway. Sure, it was a bloody long climb, but with a pretty consistent 4.5% gradient it was a grind more than a test, and many saw it coming, including Visma. Perhaps their downfall was assuming that no one else had read ahead as they did.
- Alpecin-Deceuninck also played the day perfectly. First, they managed to get a rider in the breakaway to take the pressure off their team in the bunch, leaving the sprint train to shelter in place and let Visma burn matches on the front.
- This victory for Groves stands apart in his palmarès as the win with the most vertical metres, but only just. Last year’s Volta Limburg Classic compressed 2,789 metres (compared to today’s 2,876m), though of course that’s a rather different day out with a series of short punchy ramps instead of two mountains in Spain. In fact, nine of the 25-year-old’s wins have come out of routes incorporating over 2,000 metres of elevation gain. What does set this one apart though is the nature of the climbing he faced, that is, only one other win had him racing over a Cat.1 climb, and in that instance, stage 4 of the 2023 Volta a Catalunya, it came just 25 km into the stage. Man can climb.
Up next
Stage 15 could be the decisive stage of the GC battle at this Vuelta a España, and the profile is a great illustration of why. The two trips up the Cat. 1 Alto de la Colladiella won’t be easy, but that climb is nothing compared to the Cuitu Negru. The climb is officially 18.9 km at 7.4%, with a very steep section just after the midway point and then again for the entirety of the final 3 km. The 1,847 meter (6,060 ft) altitude could also have an impact. The GC riders will all be focused on battling it out on this stage.
Originally appeared in our stage-by-stage Vuelta preview.
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