Vuelta a Espana: Cort Nielsen wins stage 18

Magnus Cort Nielsen (Orica-Bike Exchange) emerged from a sprint scrum spread across the road to win in Gandia and give the Australian WorldTour team its third stage win at the 2016 Vuelta a Espana.

The powerful 23-year-old Dane timed his sprint well, anticipating the acceleration of Nikias Arndt (Giant-Alpecin) up the left side of the road. He had the speed to go long and so held off the German, Jean-Pierre Drucker (BMC) and Daniele Bennati (Tinkoff).

Nairo Quintana (Movistar) finished safely in the peloton and so retained his 3:37 race lead on Chris Froome (Team Sky) before Friday’s vital 37km time trial between Xabia and Calp. The race against the clock and then Saturday's final mountain stage will decide who climbs on the final podium in Madrid on Sunday.

Cort Nielsen sat on the road after his huge sprint effort to win in Gandia, struggling to believe that he had just won a stage on his Grand Tour debut.

"It's a really big dream come true, really fantastic," he said. "Our main goal at Orica-Bike Exchange is to have our eye on the GC guys and every now and again we try. This is fantastic for me, I gave it a go today, and it was amazing. It's my first Grand Tour ever, and three wins, two guys high up on GC (Chaves and Yates); it's a nice team to be on at the moment."

How it happened

The rare sight of a flat stage finish and no real climbs during the day meant the 200km 18th stage was set to be a day for the sprinters if they could keep the attacks and breakaways under control.

Of course there was always going to be somebody ready to try their hand and today five riders jumped away quickly and the peloton let them go.

Fumiyuki Beppu (Trek-Segafredo), Quentin Jaurégui (AG2R-La Mondiale), Pierre Rolland (Cannondale-Drapac), Mattia Cattaneo (Lampre-Merida), and Louis Vervaeke (Lotto Soudal) were the heroes of the move and they soon opened a gap of 4:30 after just 20km.

The peloton was happy to let them hang out front, with even the Movistar team not leading much of a chase, knowing that Nairo Quintana's race lead was not under threat.

It was initially the IAM Cycling team, Giant-Alpecin and Bora-Argon 18 who lead the chase to control the break, hoping their sprinters would have a chance later on.

Beppu was he first to top of the Puerto de Casa del Alto, the only categorised climb of the stage after 70km. The road continued to climb and twist through the barren fields and olive groves of Valencia and surprisingly the break managed to push out their lead whenever the road climbed.

It reached 6:00 at the mid-way point, as the sprinters' team faded and lost interest. A strong head and side wind made for a tough day out, but the break kept putting up a real fight.

Giant-Alpecin eventually became tired of leading the chase for everyone else and moved off the front. It was a tipping point in the stage and the break seemed to have a chance. However Etixx-QuickStep moved up to the front in mass and other teams also agreed to sacrifice riders to boost the chase. With the peloton lined out, the gap melted in the hot Spanish sun. It was down to just 3:30 with 47km to go and the day tipped back in favour of the sprinters.

The team cars tried to help the break by protecting from the side winds whenever they came up to offer a bidon and gel. However the peloton was organised, with the sprint teams knowing this is their very last chance before the decisive time trial and mountain stage. With so few sprint opportunities in this year's Vuelta a Espana, nobody wanted to miss out this time.

The peloton reduced the gap gradually as the kilometres ticked down but then eased back when they almost caught the five adventurers. Jaurégui generously kicked away to up the speed and suddenly the break went clear again. However they were hanging out front at less than a minute. They were eventually caught with 11km to go as the sprinters' teams gathered and the Gandia holiday coast was in sight.

Jan Bakelants (AG2R-La Mondiale) made a solo attack and some late roundabouts caused some problems, with no one team able to dominate the lead out. Bora-Argon 18 lead into the finishing straight and Giant-Alpecin took over but Cort Nielsen had more speed and held off his rivals in the surge to the line.

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