Oscar Onley (Netcompany Ineos) bounced back to top form as he conquered the summit finish to Valle del Sol to win stage 2 of the Vuelta a Burgos, taking control of the race lead with his first victory since joining the British side.
In his first race since crashing out of the Tour Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes and being ruled out of the Tour de France due to injury, Onley won from a close-fought uphill sprint on Wednesday, narrowly pipping Giulio Ciccone (Lidl-Trek) to the line in second.
Rising Belgian talent Jarno Widar (Lotto-Intermarché) had kicked off the sprint after the steep 3.4km final climb, but he was quickly passed by Onley and Ciccone, with Enric Mas (Movistar) also coming around him before the line to take third, losing two seconds.
"I'm really happy. This hasn't been a good season for me so far; I've had a lot of setbacks and just not really got going, so I really wanted to come here, and the goal wasn't even to win, it was just to get some racing in the legs, to be honest," said Onley, who has suffered with illness and injury this year.
"It was nice to be able to pay back the team, because they've fully supported me this whole year. Obviously being a new rider in the team, I wanted to show that I belonged here so it's quite a big relief.
"I guess today I showed that I have good legs, so we'll look at where I am on GC – I lost a bit of time yesterday but so did a lot of other GC guys – there's still a lot of racing to come."
(Image credit: Getty Images)
A five-rider breakaway led for most of the second stage: Rodrigo Álvarez (Burgos Burpellet BH), Javier Ibáñez (Caja Rural-Seguros RGA), Rayan Boulahoite (TotalEnergies), Diego Uriarte (Equipo Kern Pharma), and Yago Aguirre (Euskaltel-Euskadi), but they were never allowed to build more than a two-minute lead.
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The peloton closed on them during the approach to the final climb to the line, with Tudor doing most of the work on the front. With 10km to go and the Valle del Sol climb (3.4km at 7.6%) still to come, Boulahoite and Uriarte were the last men standing, but they only had a 20-second addvantage to defend and that was quickly disappearing.
Caught with 5km to go, Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe took over on the climb to the line, but quickly ran out of riders in support of Giulio Pellizarri, so were overtaken by Onley's Netcompany Ineos teammates, who positioned him well to react to any attacks and win the final kick to the finish.
James Moultrie is a gold-standard NCTJ journalist who joined Cyclingnews as a News Writer in 2023 after originally contributing as a freelancer for eight months, during which time he also wrote for Eurosport, Rouleur and Cycling Weekly. Prior to joining the team he reported on races such as Paris-Roubaix and the Giro d’Italia Donne for Eurosport and has interviewed some of the sport’s top riders in Chloé Dygert, Lizzie Deignan and Wout van Aert. Outside of cycling, he spends the majority of his time watching other sports – rugby, football, cricket, and American Football to name a few.
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