Vuelta a España stage 10: Jay Vine climbs to second victory of Spanish Grand Tour as red jersey back in Jonas Vingegaard’s grasp

The peloton together for 175.3km from Parque de la Naturaleza Sendaviva to El Ferial Larra Belagua (Image credit: Getty Images)

The peloton must have felt quite refreshed after the first rest day, because the first two hours of the 175.3km stage to El Ferial Larra Belagua were clicked off quickly and no breakaway went clear.

One promising move from Andrea Bagioli (Lidl-Trek), Harold Tejada (XDS Astana) and Clément Braz Afonzo (Groupama-FDJ) lasted briefly until the Frenchman crashed while grabbing a feed from the team soigneur with 84km to go.

After they were caught, Victor Campenaerts launched Vingegaard into a 10-rider move while Almeida and Træen were caught napping. The bunch nullified the cheeky move and immediately (IPT, XDS) attacked.

Pierre Thierry (Arkéa-B&B Hotels) attacked with 76.5km to go, having to weave his way through a large group of pro-Palestinian protesters being hastily ushered off the road by race marshals.

Thierry’s move helped spark a huge attack. He was joined by Xabier Azparren (Q36.5), Fausto Masnada (XDS Astana) and a rider from Lotto led an attack that grew to 27 riders ahead of the Alto de las Coronas.

Gijs Leemreize of Picnic-PostNL and Pierre Thierry of Arkéa – B&B Hotels compete in the breakaway (Image credit: Getty Images)

The move included Jay Vine and Mikkel Bjerg (UAE Team Emirates XRG), Julien Bernard (Lidl-Trek), Orluis Aular, Pablo Castrillo and Javier Romo (Movistar), Matteo Sobrero and Ben Zwiehoff (Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe), Louis Vervaeke (Soudal-QuickStep), Michał Kwiatkowski (Ineos Grenadiers), Bruno Armirail and Johannes Staune-Mittet (Decathlon AG2R La Mondiale), Azparren and teammate David Gonzalez, Harold Tejada, Masnada and XDS Astana teammate Nicola Conci, Rudy Molard (Groupama-FDJ), Abel Balderstone, Joel Nicolau and Jakub Otruba (Caja Rural-Seguros RGA), Thierry, Gijs Leemreize and Vermaerke (Picnic-PostNL), Lars Craps and Alec Segaert (Lotto) and Pier-André Côté (Israel-Premier Tech)

The group was later joined by Junior Lecerf (Soudal-QuickStep), Sean Quinn, and Archie Ryan (EF Education-EasyPost), making for an enormous 30-rider move.

Bahrain Victorious took control of the chase, keeping it below 90 seconds until the Alto de las Coronas, when the gap was out to 2:30 as Javier Romo made a move midway into the ascent.

Romo remained clear at the summit to take the maximum points and, chased by Vine, the Spaniard had only a slim advantage when he was joined by Vine with 40km to go.

When Romo and Vine were caught, it was only by a fraction of the original 30-rider escape, with Bernard, Castrillo, Ryan, Azparren, Conci and Balderstone joining with 25 seconds over the rest of the attackers. Segaert bridged across to make it nine, then Vermaerke made it to the leaders to bring the first escape to ten.

Alec Segaert of Lotto and Archie Ryan of EF Education – EasyPost compete in the breakaway (Image credit: Getty Images)

With 19km to go, Segaert made a solo attack and quickly got out of sight of his previous companions. He still had 40 seconds as he started up the final climb, the Puerto de Belagua, while the red jersey was a more distant 3:23 behind the leader.

Segaert began to fade and was caught by Castrillo with 7.5km to climb. Behind, the red jersey lost touch with the UAE Team Emirates XRG pacemaking with 6.5km to go.

One by one, the breakaway riders were caught and passed by the Almeida/Vingegaard group as Castrillo was chased by Vine about 1:25 up the road.

Matteo Jorgenson of Visma-Lease a Bike leads the chase group on El Ferial Larra Belagua (Image credit: Getty Images)

The mountains classification leader passed Castrillo with 5.2km to go, while behind, Almeida attacked Vingegaard to no avail, bringing the leader’s advantage down to 1:20.

The race lead began to quickly shift as Træen slipped further and further behind Vingegaard, finally shifting in favour of the Visma-Lease a Bike leader with 4km to go.

As the gradient eased slightly with 2km to go, the gaps stabilised with Castrillo fighting 29 seconds behind Vine and Matteo Jorgenson reeling in escapees as he ushered Vingegaard along 1:22 behind the lone leader.

Vine held onto his lead to win the stage over Castrillo.