A day after coming up just short in a sprint and “settling” for the red jersey, Wout van Aert (Visma-Lease a Bike) powered to victory on stage 3 of the Vuelta a España. The 29-year-old Belgian bested stage 2 winner Kaden Groves (Alpecin-Deceuninck) and Jon Aberasturi (Euskaltel-Euskadi) in another sprint in Castelo Branco on the Vuelta’s final day in Portugal.
Victor Campenaerts (Lotto-Dstny) attempted to steal a march on the sprinters inside the last 2 km but Groves’s Alpecin team chased him down, and then Van Aert outmatched the Australian in the final few hundred meters. Accounting for bonus seconds, he now has a 13-second GC lead over Brandon McNulty (UAE Team Emirates), although a mountain stage awaits on Tuesday.
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How it happened
- Although officially a “hilly” day according to organizers, the profile for stage 3 had the sprinters’ teams fully committed to setting up a bunch kick at the end of the day, which meant that the four-rider breakaway was never given much breathing room. That gap was at around a minute and a half at the intermediate sprint with around 50 km to go, where Van Aert took the maximum points still on offer back in the bunch behind the escapees.
- After the last breakaway riders were caught, the sprint trains battled for position on the run-in to Castelo Branco, but Campenaerts threw a spanner into the works with his move just inside the last 2 km. Alpecin had to chase hard to bring the Belgian solo artist back, although they still had a rider to lead Groves into the last few hundred meters.
- Van Aert positioned himself on Groves’s wheel and he launched to the right of Groves and his lead-out rider a little over 200 meters from the line. Groves responded but Van Aert quickly surged to the head of the race and he held on to take the victory.
I think I surprised him by going before even 200 meters.
—Wout van Aert on his win over Kaden Groves
Brief analysis
- Campenaerts’s late flier put some pressure onto Alpecin, forcing the squad to do more work than they probably would have wanted. It could have derailed the lead-out altogether, but the team did a good job to close Campenaerts down without fully exhausting their resources. Groves still looked like a solid bet with a teammate in front of him on the finishing straight.
- Visma put in the work to help chase down the break, and then Van Aert decided to follow someone else’s lead-out in the end. On top of that, he decided to launch first and go around Groves even if it meant spending a bit more time in the wind.
- In the end, Van Aert’s speed carried the day. Groves looked to be making up ground in the closing meters but the line came too soon for him to get past Van Aert, who now has 10 career Grand Tour stage victories: nine in the Tour and, thanks to his canny and powerful sprint, one in the Vuelta.
Up next
Who’s ready for some GC action? The first two climbs of stage 4 will put some early fatigue into the legs – and could spring a strong breakaway – and then the ascent to the finish line will be a serious test at this point in the race. With an average gradient of 6.2%, the Pico Vullercas climb may not seem all that hard, but two thirds of the way in, the road ramps up into the double digits for an extended stretch. Whether from the break or the bunch, the stage win will go to a very strong climber.
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