Ruta del Sol: Gonzalo Serrano wins stage 2

Image 1 of 23

A daring late attack by Spain's Gonzalo Serrano (Caja Rural-Seguros RGA) on the second stage at the Vuelta a Andalucia Ruta Ciclista del Sol has seen his team ambush the WorldTour squads a take their first win of 2020 - and Serrano's first win of his career.

Following a fast descent and quick dash across the Iznajar dam, as the peloton swung hard right uphill into the finishing town, Serrano almost immediately made a searing late move that took him well clear of the pack.

On the tricky uphill finish, barely a kilometre long but that had not been described in the route book as  nearly so difficult, the chasers led by Bahrain McLaren and Movistar were caught out completely by Serrano's attack. 

By the time the WorldTour squads had closed down the gap to just a couple of seconds, Serrano was already celebrating his victory, and local sprinter Juan Jose Lobato (Fundacion Euskadi-Orbea), the pre-stage home favourite, had to settle for second.

Serrano had tried a similar late move in the much harder final ascent of Cullera of stage 2 of the recently completed Volta a la Comunitat Valenciana. On that occasion, the Spaniard was sucked in by the WorldTour teams, although his repeated breakaways in the Valencia race ultimately netted the 25-year-old from Madrid the King of the Mountains classification. Two weeks later, in Andalucia his courageous move at Iznajar earned Serrano his first victory as a pro.

In the overall classification there was little change. Jakob Fuglsang (Astana Pro Team) remained firmly in charge six seconds ahead of Mikel Landa (Bahrain McLaren). 

A late surge by Landa's teammate Dylan Teuns, third overall, allowed the Belgian to clip two seconds off Fuglsang's lead, cutting it back to a still respectable 23 seconds. 

How it unfolded

It was the longest leg of this year's Vuelta a Andalucia at 194 kilometres, and almost as soon as Thursday's stage 2 had left the region's capital Seville five riders flew the coop - Taco Van Der Hoorn (Jumbo-Visma), 2020 Santos Tour Down Under stage winner Matthew Holmes (Lotto-Soudal), Alexis Gougeard (AG2R La Mondiale), Jerome Cousin (Total Direct Energie) and Juan Osorio (Burgos - BH). 

The quintet had gained an advantage of well over five minutes as they pounded through warm sunlight across the flatlands of central Andalucia, before the bunch, led by Bahrain McLaren, began reeling them in.

However, it was only when the race reached the third category Puerto de la Parrilla in the rugged hill country surrounding Iznajar that the bunch finally succeeded in capturing the last remnants of the break. 

A flurry of minor moves then went clear, most effectively by US racer Brandon McNulty (UAE Team Emirates) and  Stefano Oldani (Lotto-Soudal). But Movistar and Bahrain McLaren were having none of it. Then after a spectacularly fast descent through the olive groves, Caja Rural-Seguros RGA's Serrano was able to pull off a rare but well-earned triumph for Spanish cycling's longest-standing second division squad.

After Thursday's subplot, the main narrative of the GC battle returns with a vengeance on Friday's stage, by far the hardest of the whole of this year's Vuelta a Andalucia. 

The stage features more than 3,000 metres of climbing, and by the time the peloton reach the last second category ascent through the town of Baeza and lumpy finale into the neighbouring Renaissance city of Ubeda, the stage will already have tackled two brutally difficult first category ascents and riders will have dug deep into their energy reserves. 

Whether such a major mountain effort will prove enough for leader Fugslang to crack, however, particularly after his impressive show of strength on the hardest climb of the race so far on stage one, remains the key question to be resolved. Either way, the sparks should surely fly.

Stage results

Overall classification