The day began with bad news for UAE Team Emirates, but it ended in celebration as Adam Yates won the stage from the breakaway, and gained a chunk of time to put himself back into the general classification picture.
And the story doesn’t end there; it was a gripping afternoon in the mountains of Sierra Nevada – an area that is familiar to the many teams that conduct training camps in the region – as the GC top 10 was re-shuffled once more. The biggest movers and shakers by far were early attacker Yates, whose team engineered a perfect breakaway, and Richard Carapaz (EF Education-Easypost), who went after the break containing two teammates with a whopping 90 km remaining. His bold move rewarded him with second on the stage and he also rocketed up to third overall overall.
In the peloton, Enric Mas (Movistar) showed yet again that he’s one of the on-form riders after a stunning acceleration on the final climb, and the Spaniard looked for a while like he might take a decent chunk of time, but a mishap on the descent and the combined strength of the chasing red jersey group meant that his rampage yielded nothing but a morale boost in the mountains. At the top of the standings, Ben O’Connor held firm on the climbs and played Primož Roglič – who’d looked a bit cooked on the final ascent – at his own game by sprinting for the remaining bonus seconds, taking confidence, and a four-second stronger lead, into the first rest day.
How it happened
- On a day that many had been calling the Queen Stage of the Vuelta – though really that has to be one of the last two mammoth days at the end of the race – but the toughest parcours of the race so far was certain to set the stage for a showdown. It started from the gun as green jersey wearer Wout van Aert (Visma-Lease a Bike) made one of the first moves to create the day’s breakaway.
- After a busy opening phase, a 26-rider group went clear and the peloton let them get around five minutes’ advantage as the whole race braced for the triple threat up ahead: three Cat.1 ascents including back-to-back climbs of the Alto de Hazallanas (7.1 km at 9.6%), after which there would be a fast 22.5-kilometre descent into Granada.
- UAE Team Emirates rallied after losing João Almeida before the start, putting three strong riders into the breakaway in Yates and mountain domestiques Marc Soler and Jay Vine. EF Education-Easypost and Groupama-FDJ also had multiples, which would prove useful later in the stage.
- The first classified climb began about 90 km from the finish, and the breakaway arrived about 4:30 ahead of the peloton, which began to lift the pace on the lower slopes under the impetus of Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe.
- Carapaz then made a surprise move with an explosive acceleration out of the peloton, and everyone just watched him go.
- By the top of the 8.9-kilometre climb, the breakaway was down to just nine riders, thanks to a massive sacrificial effort by Soler, and Carapaz had already gained about two minutes over the peloton with the help of teammate James Shaw who’d dropped out of the breakaway. Darren Rafferty also made himself available on the descent – and there was still almost half the stage to go.
- Soler’s work was done at the foot of the second climb with 61 km remaining – almost 20 of them uphill – and their gap to the peloton still about 4:45.
- Almost immediately, knowing that Carapaz was breathing down their necks 90 seconds back, Vine, Yates and David Gaudu (Groupama-FDJ) left their companions behind.
- Then three kilometres later, Adam Yates went solo.
- As Carapaz joined Vine and Gaudu, with Pablo Castrillo (Kern Pharma) about to latch back on, the race entered a holding pattern – Yates’s lead over the chasers was fairly stable, and it only grew to the peloton.
- At the foot of the second and final ascent of the Alto de Hazallanas, Yates had a two-minute-40-second advantage over the Carapaz group, and the significantly reduced peloton was 6:30 down.
- Few of the GC favourites had more than one domestique left in the red jersey group, and on another searingly hot day, their race only lit up on the final climb.
- The fatigue was palpable as the red jersey group took on the climb, such that on the lower slopes, any moves were more resultant of losing contact than a deliberate attack. Even Roglič seemed to show signs of weakness on the steeper gradients, which tempted O’Connor to accelerate before thinking better of it and calling on teammate Felix Gall to set the pace along with Florian Lipowitz (Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe) in a red jersey group that only comprised a handful of riders.
- Enric Mas seemed to be the only rider who was thriving rather than just surviving on the sweltering climb, his attack five kilometres from the summit drawing only Pavel Sivakov, who was ultimately unable to hold the pace.
- At the summit, Yates still had over two minutes’ advantage to Carapaz, who had left the last of the breakaway riders (but one) behind lower down the climb, and with the red jersey group still almost six minutes back, it was his stage to lose.
- Meanwhile, Mas had found about a minute – briefly moving him ahead of Roglič in the virtual standings – and the Spaniard was in contention for third place on the stage as he picked off dropped riders. But a close call on the descent put a big dent in his chase.
- The amount of time lost as he re-seated his chain was admirably small, and he soon joined up with Gaudu and Vine, but they were up against a swollen red jersey group that was determined to limit its losses on the fast, sweeping descent, and they were caught in the last few kilometres.
- Yates had already won the stage by that point, and Carapaz secured second 1:39 after him.
- Mas tried one more attack under the flamme rouge, but third place was decided in a reduced sprint among the GC favourites, with O’Connor surging up the left side of the road to snatch the last four bonus seconds on the line.
- At the end of stage 9, only three riders have maintained the same position in the GC top 10, leader O’Connor, second Roglič and Landa in 5th. While Carapaz’s vault onto the podium is perhaps the most significant move, one of the bigger GC stories of the day most affects the white jersey competition, its leader Antonio Tiberi unable to finish the stage. The Bahrain Victorious rider had been fourth overall at the start of the day, but his DNF makes room in the top 5 and sees the white jersey pass to sixth-overall Florian Lipowitz.
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Quotes of the day:
I’ve never suffered like this before. It’s so hot out there and I mean, from the last climb I was cramping full, and I didn’t know if I could go … you know, I’ve had a lot of bad luck over the years in Grand Tours and I really didn’t know if I could make it, but I’m so happy I could fucking finally win another Grand Tour stage.”
An emotional Adam Yates said in his winner’s interview.
Brief analysis
- There were classic breakaway tactics at play on stage 9, with both UAE Team Emirates and EF Education-Easypost putting multiple riders into the 26-rider move. Soler and Vine were there to look after Yates and make it a tough day out for their rivals for the stage, while Carapaz’s teammates were up there to get a headstart on the peloton and give their leader a helping hand after his all-out attack 90 km out. It was a strong and morale-boosting performance for the American outfit which lost two important riders earlier in the week, Rui Costa and the retiring Rigoberto Urán forced out after crashes on stages 5 and six.
- Groupama-FDJ also had the unlikely duo of David Gaudu and Stefan Küng, the latter better known for time trials and classics than mountain epics, though the big Swiss rider had a spectacular day out, making the last nine survivors and out-lasting Wout van Aert among many others (16 to be precise). Though Gaudu was unable to last with Yates or take any time back on GC, he was looking good when he drew focus in the breakaway, and a reasonable KOM point haul sets the stall for his objectives going forward. As it happens, the misfortune of some of his fellow underdogs has meant that Gaudu is back in the top 10, 6:32 down on O’Connor, and he’s tied in second place in the KOM standings just four points off Yates’s new lead.
Up next
Following the first rest day (and its 1,000 km transfer), get ready for a change of scenery now that the Vuelta has left arid Andalusia for green Galicia. Stage 10 should be a fun one with multiple potential launching pads late in the day, particularly the final Cat. 1 climb. It’s far enough from the finish that the stagehunters may have a shot at getting clear of the GC group.
Originally appeared in our stage-by-stage preview.
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