Vine wins stage 6 atop Pico Jano summit, Evenepoel takes overall lead at Vuelta a España

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Jay Vine was the surprise winner of the first summit finish of the Vuelta a España. The Alpecin-Deceuninck rider attacked out of the peloton on the early slopes of the climb, and managed to hold on to his lead even as the GC favourites began to attack each other. 

Remco Evenepoel (QuickStep-AlphaVinyl) was second at 15 seconds, and becomes the new overall leader of the race. The Belgian instigated the action among the top GC favourites on the climb, and only Enric Mas (Movistar) was able to follow him.

After holding onto his wheel for the rest of the climb, Mas was third at 16 seconds, while Juan Ayuso (UAE Team Emirates) was fourth at 55 seconds. 

Primož Roglič (Jumbo-Visma) was fifth, leading a group home that finished 1:37 behind Vine that also featured ten other GC favourites, including Jai Hindley (Bora-Hansgrohe), Simon Yates (BikeExchange), João Almeida (UAE Team Emirates), Ben O’Connor (Ag2r-Citroën), Gino Mader (Bahrain-Victorious) and Thymen Arensman (DSM).

The Ineos Grenadiers trio of Pavel Sivakov, Tao Geoghegan Hart and Carlos Rodriguez were also present, but not Richard Carapaz, who was the highest profile favourite to have a bad day. He finished 2:59 behind Vine. 

All eyes were on Evenepoel for much of the day, after his QuickStep-AlphaVinyl team had done a lot of work on the approach to the final climb, and the Belgian delivered by attacking 9km from the top.

Roglič and Sivakov were initially able to follow, but soon only Mas was left holding onto his wheel. Mas refused to take any turns, but Evenepoel put his head down and kept up the pace regardless, gaining precious time over the other GC contenders to take the overall lead of the race from Rudy Molard (Cofidis), who fell 21 seconds short of defending his red jersey. 

However, the decisive stage-winning attack had already been made, with Vine making the most of a lull in the pace on the lower slopes of the climb and his own lack of reputation to break clear.

“It’s almost unreal,” said the Australian at the finish, reflecting on his unlikely triumph. While a victory from a breakaway would have seemed plausible, the fact he won the stage from an attack from the group of favourites, outpacing Evenepoel and co on the mountain, came as a real shock to everyone. 

Vine explained how getting into the break had indeed been the initial plan. 

“With 70ks to go I missed the break, I had a flat tire in the first 5ks. And even though it was still the team’s plan if it came back together for me to go on the final climb, it’s unreal to be able to do that from the GC group. It’s incredible. I’ve been working towards this all year, after last year coming so close. It’s a dream come true. 

Vine became the leader on the road when he caught the final survivor of the day’s break Mark Padun (EF Education-Easypost) 6.5km from the top of the final climb. 

“I knew that Padun was still up the road, and if I was to close down the gap I had to go from long. It was lucky that — well not lucky, but planned — that I was 13 minutes [down] on GC, so no-one would care if I went, and I was able to manage my effort and just pace the climb I think pretty handily.

“There were a couple of things [he was thinking about in the final kilometre]. This is for you, my wife, who has basically just done everything for me for the last three or four years to get me to this point. I guess it’s time for me to get a corvette now!”

How it unfolded

The Vuelta travelled out of the Basque Country and into Cantabria for stage 6, for what was the hardest finish of the race so far.

The Pico Jano awaited riders at the finish, a category one climb that had never before been used in professional cycling. The first proper summit finish of the race, it was expected to ignite the race for the red jersey. 

To further complicate the stage, the weather also took a turn for the worse, with rain causing wet roads and stressful conditions. 

Having finished last yesterday, Jan Hirt (Intermarché–Wanty–Gobert Matériaux) became the second rider to abandon the race, failing to take the startline following a positive COVID-19 test.

That left 178 riders to contest the stage, of which ten managed to get into a break that went away at the start of the day with little fuss. They were: Rubén Fernández (Cofidis), Mark Padun (EF Education-EasyPost), Jan Bakelants (Intermarché-Wanty-Gobert Matériaux), Nélson Oliveira (Movistar), Fausto Masnada (Quick-Step Alpha Vinyl), Kaden Groves (BikeExchange-Jayco), Marco Brenner (Team DSM), Dario Cataldo (Trek-Segafredo), Xandro Meurisse (Alpecin-Deceuninck) and Xabier Mikel Azparren (Euskaltel-Euskadi).

Happy with the make-up of the group, the peloton allowed their lead to grow to over five minutes by the start of the first climb of the day, the category two Puerto de Alisas, at the top of which Fernández claimed maximum points in the mountains classification ahead of Cataldo and Azparren.

Bakelants was the virtual red jersey for a time, until the pace increased in the peloton to bring the gap back down to under five minutes. 

It started raining shortly after the break completed this climb, and it didn’t take long for a crash to occur on the wet roads, with Jesús Herrada (Cofidis), Lluís Mas (Movistar) and Ander Okamika (Burgos-BH) all going down together. 

QuickStep-AlphaVinyl began to help Groupama-FDJ with the pace-setting in the peloton with Remi Cavagna, but eased up after their leader Remco Evenepoel had a mechanical, allowing the gap to grow back up to nearly five minutes.

The gap remained at around that for a while after Evenepoel returned, but came back down to closer to four minutes after a small uncategorised climb about 60km from the finish. It then began to tumble rapidly as Ineos Grenadiers led the chase at the front.

A sharp corner on a shallow descent 45km proved to be especially treacherous in the wet. First in the break, Cataldo went down. Then when the peloton reached the same corner, about five riders went down, with Carl Fredrik Hagen (Israel-PremierTech) the worst off.

That crash also caused a split in the peloton as they approached the penultimate climb of the day, the category one Collada de Brenes.

On the climb, Julian Alaphilippe took over at the front from Ineos Grenadiers, with QuickStep-AlphaVinyl leader Remco Evenepoel on his wheel. 

With the gap already down to under two minutes, the break’s chances appeared doomed with Alaphilippe’s injection of pace. Padun refused to give up though, and dropped everyone else in the group on the climb. By the top he had a lead of a minute on Fernández, who had dropped the other riders in the break, and who in turn was a minute ahead of the peloton. 

In the peloton, Molard was dropped a few kilometres from the top of the climb, leaving him with a difficult chase on the descent for him and his teammate Quentin Pacher if he were to save the red jersey. 

The rain was falling heavily by the time the riders reached the top of the climb, making for a tense, dangerous descent. That didn’t stop Bahrain-Victorious from setting a quick pace on it, or Alaphilippe, who increased the speed even more with some impressive skills on the downhill.

Padun and Fernández were both clearly uncomfortable on the downhill, allowing Masnada to catch and pass the latter, and bring Padun to within 30 seconds. But the valley roads that followed allowed Fernández to catch him again, and the pair were both swallowed up just prior to the start of the Pico Jano.

At the start of the climb, Padun’s had a lead of just under a minute over the peloton, which now again included Molard, who had just about made it back in time. 

Molard was among those dropped when the action started kicking off on the final climb though.

Simon Yates was the first to open hostilities with a move 10km from the top, but it was Evenepoel’s a kilometre later that shaped the GC battle the rest of the way up.

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