Vuelta a España: Lopez triumphs on the Gamoniteiru on stage 18

Image 1 of 41

Miguel Ángel López (Movistar) claimed victory on the queen stage of the Vuelta a España, triumphing alone atop the spectacular new summit finish of the Altu d’El Gamoniteiru. 

The Colombian attacked 4km from the top of the 14.6km climb, which boasts an average gradient of almost 10 per cent, and held on as the cloud thickened and the other GC riders responded near the top. 

Race leader Primož Roglič (Jumbo-Visma) weathered the final high-mountain outing of the race, skipping clear from Egan Bernal (Ineos Grenadiers) and Lopez’s teammate Enric Mas in the final 100 metres to place second on the stage. 

He conceded 14 seconds to Lopez but technically increased his overall lead to 2:30 as second-placed Mas crossed the line for third at 20 seconds, just ahead of Bernal. 

“It means a lot, to me and the team,” said López. “We knew it was a beautiful stage today, and we’re happy. It’s four years since I last won a stage at the Vuelta and to do it on the queen stage, to do it with love and motivation, is amazing.”

The queen stage of the race, which featured two category 1 and one category 2 climbs ahead of the daunting final ascent, was highly-anticipated but failed to deliver the race-defining drama expected from a final-week showpiece. That’s largely because Roglič has been deemed unassailable by his rivals, and he will have been happy to have defended his lead while Movistar will surely now consider their Vuelta a success with a big stage win and two riders solidly in the podium positions.

In the end, the bigger movement happened just below the podium. Bernal’s accelerations in the final couple of kilometres saw him move up to fifth - as Guillaume Martin (Cofidis) was dropped further down the climb - and also to within seven seconds of Jack Haig, who placed fifth at 58 seconds after his Bahrain Victorious team had worked all day. 

Haig was once again shepherded impressively up the final climb by Gino Mäder, and they crossed the line alongside David de la Cruz (UAE Team Emirates) and Louis Meintjes (Intermarché-Wanty-Gobert Matériaux), both of whom launched surprise assaults on the final climb. 

Meintjes’ teammate Jan Hirt had in fact shredded the GC group to 12 riders half-way up, with Meintjes rewarded for arguably his best day on the bike in years by moving into the top 10 overall. 

Sepp Kuss (Jumbo-Visma) worked for Roglič after the Lopez attack and finished at 1:06, a second ahead of Adam Yates (Ineos Grenadiers), who struggled on the upper reaches of the climb. 

In the overall standings, Roglič leads as by 2:30 and López by 2:53, while there’s another big gap back to Haig at 4:46 and Bernal at 4:43. Kuss and Yates are around the six-minute mark while Mäder continues his rise up the standings to eighth at 7:48. Martin slips to ninth, while Meintjes leapfrogged his teammate and the previous day’s red jersey Odd Christian Eiking on his way to 10th at 9:02.

“It felt like the queen stage. It was a super hard day, especially after yesterday’s effort,” Roglič said. “It’s nice the mountains are behind us. I think we’re all feeling the efforts. There are some super hard stages to come and hopefully we can do our best and finish it off.”

How it unfolded

The 162.2km stage from Salas to the highly-anticipated hors-catégorie summit finish on the Alto d’El Gamoniteiru was billed as the Queen stage of the 2021 Vuelta, and the final high-mountain stage of the three weeks. 

There were two non-starters due to injuries in the form of Carlos Verona (Movistar) and Dylan van Baarle (Ineos Grenadiers), but the rest of the field shot out of the blocks on the gradually rising roads that preceded the two category 1 climbs in the opening half of the parcours. 

James Piccoli (Israel Start-Up Nation) attacked from the gun and was soon joined by Pelayo Sanchez (Burgos-BH), Harm Vanhoucke (Lotto Soudal), and Bert Jan Lindeman (Qhubeka NextHash). After the group swelled to four, it swelled to 32, as a huge group cruised clear of the peloton with surprising ease. 

After 10km the large breakaway was established and, as well as the original four, it contained: Koen Bouwman (Jumbo-Visma), Mauri Vansevenant (Deceuninck-QuickStep), Michael Cherel, Stan Dewulf (AG2R Citroën), Floris De Tier, Edward Planckaert (Alpecin-Fenix), Gorka Izaguirre (Astana-Premier Tech), Patrick Gamper (Bora-Hansgrohe), Jose Herrada (Cofidis), Jens Keukeleire (EF Education-Nippo), Olivier Le Gac (Groupama-FDJ), Rein Taaramae (Intermarché-Wanty-Gobert Matériaux), Salvatore Puccio (Ineos Grenadiers), Steff Cras (Lotto Soudal), Imanol Erviti (Movistar), Damien Howson, Nick Schultz (Team BikeExchange), Michael Storer, Thymen Arensman (Team DSM), Fabio Aruns (Qhubeka NextHash), Gianluca Brambilla, Antonio Nibali (Trek-Segafredo), Rafal Majka (UAE Team Emirates), Luis Angel Mate, Gotzon Martin (Euskaltel-Euskadi), Aritz Bagues (Caja Rural), Carlos Canal, Andre Okamika (Burgos-BH). 

The gap quickly rose to three minutes before Bahrain Victorious - the only team not represented up the road - took control of the peloton.

The first climb of the day was the first-category Puertu de San Llaurienzu - 9.9km at 8.6 per cent - and the breakaway increased their advantage to five minutes by the time they hit it. Gamper, Le Gac, and Lindeman were all dropped but otherwise the group remained together, riding a solid tempo. 

Piccoli attacked 4km from the summit but did little more than dangle out in front before being caught when the pace increased in sight of the summit banner. At that point, we saw the first of Storer, who hit out to take maximum mountains classification points, with his teammate Arensman taking the next best share, the polka-dot jersey already on the back of their teammate Romain Bardet back in the peloton. 

In that peloton, Bahrain pulled all the way to the top through Mark Padun, and trailed over the crest at 4:50 before setting a fast pace on the descent, even splitting the bunch briefly. 

That effort reduced the gap to 3:20 on the false flat valley road that led to the intermediate sprint, and directly after, the second climb of the day: the category 1 Altu de la Cobertoria - 7.9km at 8.6 per cent. 

Keukeleire won the sprint ahead of Dewulf before DSM got back to work on the climb, with Arensman setting a tempo that clearly showed they were teeing things up for Storer. The impetus was apparent as the gap back to the peloton stretched to four minutes, and Storer was emphatic when he made his move 4km from the summit. 

Sanchez attacked and went off in pursuit but the Australian crested 20 seconds clear of the Spaniard and nearly a minute clear of the rest of the break, which was now heavily reduced. In doing so, Storer overtook Bardet in the provisional mountains classification standings. 

Bahrain Victorious were still in control of a peloton that still contained more than 60 riders, and they led them to the summit five minutes behind Storer, with 68km left to race. 

Storer then produced a thrilling descent to stretch his lead ahead of a testing 25km trek through the valley ahead of the mountainous finale. Sanchez fell back to the reduced breakaway group, which was at two minutes by the time the road flattened out. Despite their numerical advantage and flat terrain, they weren’t able to do much damage to the flying Storer, who held onto a two-minute lead all the way to the Altu La Sega o del Cordal - the category 2 climb that preceded the monstrous final ascent. 

Back in the peloton, they were getting closer to both Storer and the chase group, and that was because Movistar started working with Bahrain in the valley. The pace was such that, even in spite of attacks from Aruns and Herrada, they caught the chasing breakaway group by the start of the penultimate climb with 30km to go. Storer, however, remarkably managed to remain two minutes clear.  

On the climb itself - which measured 8.2km at 5.8 per cent - the young Australian showed more visible signs of his effort but actually extended his lead as Movistar and Bahrain took a back seat in the peloton and UAE Team Emirates took command. 

Towards the top of the climb, when the gap had nudged out to 2:30, Bardet attacked out of the bunch with Mikel Bizkarra (Euskaltel-Euskadi). The Frenchman took the second helping of mountains points at the top before dropping the Spaniard on the short descent that preceded the final climb. 

The final climb

Storer hit the Altu d’El Gamoniteiru - 14.6km at an average gradient of 9.8 per cent and with pitches of 17 per cent - with a lead of two minutes over Bardet and 2:30 over the peloton. Bardet, however, only lasted a kilometre before being caught as Movistar took it up once more. It was Jose Joaquin Rojas on the front and his tempo wasn’t too strong, leading Geoffrey Bouchard (AG2R Citroën) to go on the attack. David de la Cruz (UAE Team Emirates) set off in pursuit, catching and dropping the Frenchman before closing to 1:30 on Storer 10km from the top. 

Bahrain had taken back control through Damiano Caruso and the Italian’s turn started to thin the bunch down to size, while Storer appeared to finally be starting to fade Caruso’s turn ended when Intermarché hit the front 8km from the top, with Jan Hirt pacing 12th-placed Louis Meintjes, who was presumably worried about De la Cruz, now a minute up the road and above him in the virtual standings. 

Hirt’s tempo did instant damage, as the group of favourites quickly reduced to around 15 riders, with fifth-placed Guillaume Martin (Cofidis) and ninth-placed Felix Grossschartner (Bora-Hansgrohe) among those dropped. At the same time, Storer himself quickly faded, although he was able to latch onto De la Cruz’s wheel when he was caught just under 7km from the top. 

De la Cruz dropped Storer 5.5km from the top, but by that point he was just 35 seconds up on the GC group, which contained only Hirt, Meintjes, Haig, Mäder, Roglič, Kuss, Kruijswijk, Mas, López, Bernal, Yates, Bardet. 

Five kilometres from the top, Bernal hit out. For the second time in as many days, he was instantly tracked by Roglič, with López and Mas getting on board. As gaps opened, Kuss was there to support Roglič, but Haig was distanced, along with Mäder, Yates and Meintjes. 

Kuss moved forward to set the tempo as they closed to within 25 seconds of De la Cruz with 4km to go, at which point López launched his first attack. The Colombian made use of a small respite in the gradient to spin clear and he quickly opened a gap on his rivals. The subsequent lull behind allowed Mäder to drag Haig back, with Meintjes and Yates in the wheel. 

López caught De la Cruz as the gradient stiffened viciously just inside the 3km-to-go banner, at which point he had 30 seconds over the GC group. Another high-cadence acceleration took him instantly clear of the Spaniard and further into the clouds. At the same point, Yates lost contact again as Kuss set the pace in the chase, with Mas having to sit in the wheel. 

With 2km to go, Roglič hit out, launching a seated acceleration, which only Mas and Bernal could follow. They breezed past De la Cruz before Bernal attacked again, although Roglič and Mas were perfectly able to respond. After Roglič calmed the pace slightly, Bernal wound it up again steadily, causing the gap to Mäder, Haig, Meingjes, Kuss, and Yates to grow.

López entered the steep final kilometre with a lead of 23 seconds, as Roglič took it back up behind, and didn’t crack on the super-steep final ramps. Roglič produced a trademark uphill sprint to take second place and close to just 14 seconds of López by the line, while Mas and Bernal trailed home several seconds later. 

The gaps were relatively small in the end, and all that remains of the Vuelta are a couple of undulating stages and the final-day time trial into Santiago La Compostela.