Ruta del Sol: Fuglsang seals overall victory

Image 1 of 24

Following his best season ever in 2019, Jakob Fuglsang (Astana) got off to a flying start again in the Vuelta a Andalucia with the overall victory for a second year running - and if anything, is looking even stronger than 12 months ago.

Last February, Fugslang did not take a single stage win en route to the overall victory, and 'only' captured the overall lead 24 hours before the finish, but this time around the Dane has led Andalucia from beginning to end, as well as claiming two tough stage victories.

In Sunday’s final time trial, Fuglsang came within a whisker of a third, finishing less than a second behind stage winner Dylan Teuns (Bahrain-McLaren). Alexander Edmondson (Mitchelton-Scott) was third.

"It was a good time trial and, in the end, it was super close," Fuglsang said. "I am really happy that I could repeat my overall win here. It’s amazing to start the season by winning this race again. 

"Last year I had the best season of my career so far and I hope that repeating this win means I can do the same again. It’s been a very hard race and we had a lot of hard competition to defend the jersey from the first day but the team has been amazing. I am the winner but so is the team. 

"Of course, for me it was important to keep the jersey but with a short and intense TT, you have to give everything and I didn’t want to take to many risks on the descent so to finish second, I am really happy. I hope it will be a good season and starting like this with a good result here gives me confidence and I can now work towards my next goals."

Off the bike, it has been a complicated start to 2020 for Fuglsang, following the unconfirmed allegations - and his categoric denial - that he had been working with Michele Ferrari. But in racing, the Dane has shown he is as much of a force to be reckoned with as he was in 2019, if not more.

Sunday’s final 13 kilometre TT stage in the coastal resort of Mijas was short, but extremely technical, with a plethora of short, punchy climbs, fast downhills, roundabouts and sharp corners, and even a short section of gravel road thrown in for good measure. Although Fuglsang had barely shown a moment of weakness in the previous four days, his slender pre-TT overall advantage of 14 seconds over closest runner-up Mikel Landa (Bahrain-McLaren) and 35 seconds on Jack Haig (Mitchelton-Scott) meant there was no room for error in this final test.

As matters turned out, Fuglsang rode a faultless TT, his bright yellow jersey of race leader glinting in the warm Andalucia spring sunshine as he crossed the mid-way checkpoint with just six seconds delay on stage leader Teuns. Fuglsang then opened up the throttle on the second half to close the gap to just eight-tenths of a second on the Belgian, while finishing two seconds ahead of longstanding provisional stage leader Alex Edmondson (Mitchelton-Scott). Never less than second on the four key stages, the 34-year-old Dane was a well-deserved winner of Andalucia’s points classification as well as the overall.

Further down the GC, there was room for some significant changes as Haig ousted Landa from the second overall spot with an impressive seventh place on the TT, 24 seconds down on Teuns. Claiming second in the Volta a la Comunitat Valenciana a couple of weeks back, and 24 hours after his fine stage win in Granada on Saturday, Haig’s strong finish to Andalucia only underlines that the Queenslander is, once again, in fine form, as he heads towards his next goal of Paris-Nice.

Landa’s somewhat underwhelming finale to Andalucia should not overshadow that the Basque has clearly got off to a strong start with his new team Bahrain-McLaren. Landa was the only rider who could come close to matching Fuglsang on the difficult finale of stage one, and his podium spot in what is easily the toughest of the ‘early-season’ stage races constitutes the man from Murgia’s best-ever start to the year by far. 

Results

General classification