Remco Evenepoel wins Vuelta a Burgos

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There were no last-minute surprises in the Vuelta a Burgos final stage on Saturday as race leader Remco Evenepoel (Deceuninck-QuickStep) held on for overall victory despite  Mikel Landa (Bahrain McLaren) piling on the pressure on the last, brutally steep ascent to Lagunas de Neila.

The stunningly consistent Evenepoel has now claimed three wins in all three stage races he has taken part in this season -  the Vuelta a San Juan, the Volta ao Algarve before cycling went into lockdown mode and now the Vuelta a Burgos on cycling’s return. It is an impressive series of results for any racer, but for one aged 20, even more so.

“Us older guys are going to have to hurry up and win races,” Landa observed wryly at the summit of Neila, “because at this rate in a few years’ time Remco’s going to be winning everything.”

The day’s triumph on Lagunas de Neila went to another promising young racer, Ivan Sosa (Team Ineos), for a third straight year after breaking away from Evenepoel and Landa in the final kilometre. 

But the overall victory remained out of Sosa’s reach, with Evenepoel claiming the GC top prize ahead of Mikel Landa and - after Esteban Chaves (Mitchelton-Scott) and George Bennett (Jumbo-Visma) both cracked on Neila -  yet another hugely promising Deceuninck-QuickStep racer, Joao Almeida.

“I wanted to try to win the overall as well but I’ve had to settle for the stage here in Lagunas de Neila, and I’m very happy I got that,” Sosa, whose GC hopes evaporated after digging overly deep in the cross winds on stage 3, said afterwards. 

“It was a  very fast final climb, so I went for it in the last few hundred metres to get that win. But in any case it’s been a very good week for all of us, back racing here again at last,” he added.

“It was a really hard ascent, and  altitude is not to my advantage,” Evenepoel said afterwards, “but I managed to distance a lot of GC guys and I kept Landa in my vision. It was a perfect day for me.”

“I had to suffer, I had to fight hard and it was a hard climb, harder than two days ago, but it’s nice to win here.”

It was indicative of Evenepoel’s strength that Landa had to dig so deep for the right to stand next to the Belgian on the podium, with Bahrain McLaren instrumental on the hot, hilly run-in to Lagunas de Neila when it came to pulling back a half-dozen strong break of the day.

Powered by veteran Dani Navarro (Israel Start-Up Nation) and Burgos-BH’s Vuelta a España  summit stage winner, Angel Madrazo, the six’s maximum mid-stage lead of six minutes began to crumble as riders like Damiano Caruso (Bahrain McLaren) upped the pace hard on the steadily rising two third category climbs immediately preceding the ascent to Lagunas.

The Italian’s ferocious drive saw Movistar’s three leaders -  Enric Más, Alejandro Valverde and Marc Soler -  surprisingly out for the count for a second mountain stage, and allowed Landa to launch his first attack no sooner had the main, steep, ascent to Lagunas began.

Although Evenepoel and the little group of favourites regained contact, Landa almost immediately went again, and this time, the Basque’s attack stuck. But having gained an initial gap, Landa’s lead of a dozen seconds stubbornly refused to increase on the narrow forest road, with Evenepoel’s bright pink and purple leader’s jersey permanently visible at the back of a steadily shrinking chase group some 50 metres behind the Basque. 

The stalemate endured for nearly a kilometre. However,  Mitchelton-Scott’s ambitions were to benefit the Belgian, who easily followed the ferocious pace then set down by Simon Yates for his teammate Chaves as the Briton singlehandedly dragged the Colombian and, as it turned out, Evenepoel back up to Landa.  

Behind Almeida slowly but steadily worked his way almost to within contact of the lead group of Landa, Chaves and Evenepoel,  and then with less than two kilometres to go the Belgian attacked himself. Briefly alone off the front, Evenepoel’s move which did no favours to his Portuguese teammate’s efforts to bridge across, although it had the benefit  - for Evenepoel, if not Almeida - of definitively sinking  an already struggling Chaves. 

For a moment it seemed that Evenepoel’s ambitious attack could net the Belgian a second summit stage win. But instead  Landa’s steady, loping style allowed him to regain contact with the race leader, with Ivan Sosa also coming across for the last battle.

The unstable truce lasted barely a few hundred metres before Sosa burst off for a fine solo win, and Landa, finally, could briefly shake off Evenepoel.

By then the finishing gantry were almost within sight and the Belgian showed no sign of really weakening, and with his third place at the finish, Evenepoel's third stage race GC win of the year - out of a possible three - was in the bag. And for both him and Deceunick-QuickStep, with two stage wins, the overall and a third place with Almeida, as well as the Best Young Riders competition for Evenepoel, Burgos has been a dream re-start to the 2020 season.

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