Jonas Vingegaard (Visma-Lease A Bike) completed another dominant outing at O Gran Camiño by winning the final summit finish to Monte Aloia to seal final overall victory. It marks the second year in succession that the Dane has racked up a hat-trick of stage wins and the yellow jersey at the Galician race.
The final day was blighted by miserable weather, leading the organiser to change the configuration of the stage. The peloton was initially scheduled to make two ascents of Monte Aloia, but, due to the conditions, that was reduced to just the final haul to the finish.
Lenny Martinez (Groupama-FDJ) sparked the winning move when he attacked with 3km of the climb remaining. Vingegaard, inevitably, came with him and the Dane would proceed to burn off his young companion to claim the stage honours.
Martinez rode strongly to hold onto second place, 15 seconds behind Vingegaard, while Hugh Carthy (EF Education-EasyPost) led Egan Bernal (Ineos) and Jefferson Cepeda (Caja Rural-Seguros RGA) home a further half a minute behind.
In the overall standings, Vingegaard ended the race with an advantage of 1:55 over Martinez, while Bernal took third at 2:11 for his first podium finish in a stage race since he suffered life-threatening injuries in a training crash in January 2022.
Results
The rain began to teem down yet again in O Gran Camiño, just as the 109 riders left the start town of Pontereas for the final and toughest day of the 2024 race. Midway through the stage, the organisation took the decision to cut the first ascent of Monte Aloia from the route because of the extremely rough weather, reducing the stage distance from 162 kilometres to 132.
An early attack by Neilson Powless (EF Education First-EasyPost) was initially followed by fellow American Will Barta (Movistar), Gianluca Brambilla (Q36.5) and Portuguese racer Joaquim Silva (Efapel), already in the break of the day on stage 3.
Powless ploughed on regardless despite having a minimal advantage over his pursuers, who were quickly sucked by in by the peloton, and finally after some 30 kilometres of racing he was joined by Uraguay’s Eric Fagundo (Burgos-BH), Basque Asier Etxebarría (Euskatel-Euskadi), Silva and his Efapel teammate Pedro Pinto, and fellow Portuguese rider Rafael Reis (Sabgal).
As the rain continued to bucket down, the sextet opened up a gap of just over 3:00 on the long approach to the two decisive ascents, the cat 2 Alto de San Cosme and the windy, narrow ascent to Monte Aloia. Fagundez, at 2:47 overall, moved briefly into the overall lead.
The six reached the foot of San Cosme with their advantage all but intact as the wind touched speeds of 80kmh, heavy rain relentlessly battered the race and the TV broadcast, delayed due to the extreme weather conditions. Thankfully there were comparatively warm temperatures compared to stage 2, around 10 degrees.
By the summit the gap remained stable, allowing the half dozen to begin to dream of a possible stage win, although the hardest ascent still remained. By the time they reached the final intermediate sprint of the day, with 14 kilometres to go, the advantage shrank dramatically, to just over a minute, thanks to Visma-Lease A Bike.
At the foot of the Monte Aloia, the gap had dropped to 50 seconds and continued to shrink fast, with Fagundez, Silva and an Italian racer who bridged across, Walter Calzoni (Q36.5).
Results
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