Protests brought yet more disruption to La Vuelta as Egan Bernal (Ineos Grenadiers) edged Mikel Landa (Soudal Quick-Step) to his first major win in over four years after the Colombian champion took the spoils in a shortened Stage 16 of La Vuelta.
Pro-Palestine demonstrations forced the race organisers to cancel the final ascent to Castro de Herville at short notice and bring the finish forward to the 8km remaining banner, at the base of the ascent.
On the punchy rise to the makeshift finish line, Bernal outkicked the Basque veteran Landa to secure his first WorldTour win since a career-threatening training crash in 2022.
A strange and subdued end to what promised to be an exciting finale saw Landa condemned to the 31st second-place finish in his career after his former Sky team-mate turned the page to complete his clean sweep of stage wins on cycling’s Grand Tours.
Denmark’s Jonas Vingegaard (Visma-Lease a Bike) survived a late scare to retain his 48-second lead over Portugal’s Joao Almeida (UAE Team Emirates-XRG). The red jersey was forced to ride the final 10km of the stage on team-mate Ben Tulett’s bike after picking up a puncture near the top of the penultimate climb.
Vingegaard, Almeida and third-place Tom Pidcock (Q36.5 Pro Cycling) all finished together almost six minutes in arrears to protect their places on the virtual podium with five stages of the race remaining.
But following the latest day of protests and demonstrations, it remains to be seen if the 80th edition of La Vuelta will make it to Madrid for the scheduled finish on Sunday.
With opportunities running out and UAE having plundered the lion’s share of stage wins so far, a hectic opening hour to the 168km stage from Poio to Castro de Herville in Galicia saw no breakaway form despite wave after wave of attacks.
When the day’s 17-rider move finally came together, it was no surprise to see Marc Soler present and correct – the Spaniard pushing for his second, and his UAE team’s eighth, stage win of the race.
Joining Soler in the fighting force was Ineos duo Bernal and Bob Jungels, British livewire Finlay Pickering (Bahrain Victorious), Landa and his Soudal Quick-Step colleague Mauri Vansevenant, German powerhouse Nico Denz (Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe), and no fewer than three Groupama-FDJ riders in Clement Braz Afonso, Rudy Mollard and Brieuc Rolland.
The advantage of the move was over four minutes before the first of four categorised climbs, the Alto de San Antonino, on which Denz pipped Soler to take maximum KOM points.
It was on the second and longest climb, the Alto da Groba, as drizzle started to fall that Landa, almost surreptitiously, floated clear of his fellow escapees on a flat segment a few kilometres shy of the summit.
The Basque veteran’s former team-mate Bernal was first to react, the Colombian leading the chase with French tyro Braz Afonso just ahead of the summit. A second Groupama rider, Rolland, soon joined before Denz made it a quintet on the descent.
On the unclassified uphill rise to the intermediate sprint at Couso, the rest of the breakaway blew apart, with Soler and Pickering riding clear in pursuit of the leaders, 20 seconds up the road.
With some seriously steep pitches in the gradient, it was the supposedly penultimate climb of the Alto de Prado where the battle really kicked off. Denz was dropped on a punishing double-digit ramp, the German joining forces with Soler and Pickering in a trio which suddenly found itself the best part of a minute down.
His chances of a second stage win dashed, Soler sat up and waited for his UAE team-mate Almeida, who was part of the GC group now over seven minutes in arrears.
But it was a GC battle that never materialised – despite an early flashpoint when Vingegaard punctured near the summit.
‘Issues, issues!’ – Vingegaard takes team-mate’s bike after puncture
Video credit: TNT Sports
No sooner had the Dane expertly swapped bikes with Tulett and ridden back into contention than the news filtered through of mass protests on the final climb, six kilometres from the finish.
By this point, Landa had led Bernal and Braz Afonso over the summit of the Alto de Prado ahead of what looked destined to be a three-way battle for the stage spoils.
A puncture for Braz Afonso on the descent dashed the French debutant’s hopes of causing an upset and beating his illustrious companions to the line – especially after it was hastily announced that the finish would come at the foot of the final climb in a bid to protect the peloton from the protests.
Bernal duly outkicked Landa to win the shortened stage in a rather anticlimactic fashion that was wholly out of sync with its significance.
Besides the dual national championship titles he secured earlier in the season, Tuesday’s win marked the 28-year-old Bernal’s first major victory since his overall triumph in the Giro d’Italia in 2021.
By a quirk of fortune, Bernal has now won shortened stages in all three of cycling’s Grand Tours. With the peloton coming home 5’52″ down, Bernal also rose back to 12th place and is within touching distance of the top 10.
Braz Afonso’s ill-timed puncture saw him finish in fifth place behind team-mate Rolland and Germany’s Denz – Rolland battling back to finish just seven seconds behind Bernal and Landa.
Despite an attempt to ride clear on the final descent by Pidcock, there was no change at the top of the standings for the red jersey favourites.
Italy’s Giulio Pellizzari (Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe) moved up to fifth place at the expense of Austria’s Felix Gall after the Decathlon AG2R La Mondiale rider was distanced on the Alto de Prado and crossed the line almost a minute down.
With just 48 seconds separating Vingegaard and Almeida, La Vuelta continues on Wednesday with the 143km Stage 17, which concludes with the first-category ascent of the Alto de El Morredero.
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