Spanish cyclist Marc Soler (UAE Emirates) won the rain-soaked 16th stage of the Vuelta a España (Tour of Spain), a gruelling 181.5 km stretch from Luanco to the Lagos de Covadonga summit, on Tuesday.
Belgium's Wout van Aert (Visma-Lease a Bike), a potential contender, was forced to abandon the race following a nasty fall that injured his knee about 50 km from the finishing line.
Of the 17 riders in the day’s breakaway, only six remained to contest the stage victory in the final climb to Lagos de Covadonga. At 30, Soler emerged as the toughest, achieving his 7th career victory, the first in two years and another partial win in the Vuelta.
Second place went to Italian Filippo Zana (Jayco AlUla), with Briton Max Poole (dsm-firmenich PostNL) coming in third.
Australian Ben O’Connor (Decathlon AG2R La Mondiale) maintained his overall lead, arriving 58 seconds behind Soler and staying five seconds ahead of Slovenia’s Primoz Roglic (Red Bull-BORA-hansgrohe) in the general classification.
Among the favourites from the main field, Spain’s Enric Mas (Movistar) broke away to finish 9th. With a time of 3:54 minutes behind the day’s winner, Mas led a trio including Ecuador’s Richard Carapaz (EF Education-Post) and Primoz Roglic, who finished 11th and 12th respectively.
Struggling to keep pace in the final climb, O’Connor finished 20th in the stage but managed to retain his lead in this 79th edition of the Tour of Spain.
In the overall standings, Mas is third, 1:25 min behind, and Carapaz is fourth, trailing by 1:46 min.
Wout van Aert’s early crash was one of the day’s significant incidents. Having regained his place in the peloton after falling just 10km into the race, he was among 14 other riders, including William Jr Lecerf (Soudal Quick-Step), Sylvain Moniquet (Lotto Dsnty) and Australian Jay Vine (UEA Emirates), who broke away 148km from the finish.
Van Aert also managed to extend his lead in the descent of one of the day’s three major climbs, the Mirador del Fito, which lasted about 30km. He later secured ten points at the summit of the Collada Llomena to strengthen his mountain leader’s position before falling again, this time, quite severely.
Nearly all the classifications are now topped by Australians: O’Connor (red for general classification), Vine (polka dot for mountain classification), and green jersey for Alpecin-Deceuninck's Kaden Groves for the points classification.
The final climb saw main contenders Mas, Landa and Carapaz battling it out, followed by Roglic. O’Connor was lagging but managed to save his jersey by a handful of seconds.
A total of 145 riders started the race - without Tom Paquot (Intermarché-Wanty) and Australian Callum Scotson (Jayco-AlUla) due to illness. Frenchman Rémy Rochas (Groupama-FDJ) retired in mid-stage, in addition to Van Aert.
The Vuelta is in its final week, ending in Madrid on Sunday. Wednesday’s 17th stage could conclude with a sprint finish after a 141.5 km course from Arnuero to Santander.
