Evenepoel maintains overall race lead in Cistierna
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Jesús Herrada claims stage 7 victory from winning breakaway at Vuelta a España(Image credit: Getty Images)
Jesús Herrada claims stage 7 victory from winning breakaway at Vuelta a España(Image credit: Sprint Cycling Agency)
Fred Wright, Harrison Sweeny, Jesús Herrada, Samuele Battistella and Jimmy Janssens in the breakaway on stage 7 at the Vuelta a Espana(Image credit: Getty Images)
Fred Wright, Harrison Sweeny, Jesús Herrada, Samuele Battistella and Jimmy Janssens in the breakaway on stage 7 at the Vuelta a Espana(Image credit: Getty Images)
Fred Wright, Harrison Sweeny, Jesús Herrada, Samuele Battistella and Jimmy Janssens in the breakaway on stage 7 at the Vuelta a Espana(Image credit: Getty Images)
Fred Wright, Harrison Sweeny, Jesús Herrada, Samuele Battistella and Jimmy Janssens in the breakaway on stage 7 at the Vuelta a Espana(Image credit: Getty Images)
Fred Wright, Harrison Sweeny, Jesús Herrada, Samuele Battistella and Jimmy Janssens in the breakaway on stage 7 at the Vuelta a Espana(Image credit: Getty Images)
Remco Evenepoel and QuickStep-AlphaVinyl on stage 7 at the Vuelta a Espana(Image credit: Getty Images)
Remco Evenepoel and QuickStep-AlphaVinyl on stage 7 at the Vuelta a Espana(Image credit: Getty Images)
Fred Wright, Harrison Sweeny, Jesús Herrada, Samuele Battistella and Jimmy Janssens in the breakaway on stage 7 at the Vuelta a Espana(Image credit: Getty Images)
The peloton on stage 7(Image credit: Getty Images)
Remco Evenepoel and QuickStep-AlphaVinyl on stage 7 at the Vuelta a Espana(Image credit: Getty Images)
Primoz Roglic and Jumbo-Visma(Image credit: Getty Images)
Jesús Herrada claims stage 7 victory from winning breakaway at Vuelta a España(Image credit: Getty Images)
Jesús Herrada claims stage 7 victory from winning breakaway at Vuelta a España(Image credit: Getty Images)
Sam Bennett in the green jersey at the Vuelta a Espana(Image credit: Getty Images)
Remco Evenepoel in the red leader's jersey and the white young rider's jersey at the Vuelta a Espana(Image credit: Getty Images)
Remco Evenepoel in the red leader's jersey at the Vuelta a Espana(Image credit: Getty Images)
Victor Langellotti in the mountains jersey at the Vuelta a Espana(Image credit: Getty Images)
Remco Evenepoel leads the overall classification after stage 7 at the Vuelta a Espana(Image credit: Getty Images)
Jesus Herrada celebrates winning stage 7 at the Vuelta a Espana(Image credit: Getty Images)
Jesus Herrada celebrates winning stage 7 at the Vuelta a Espana(Image credit: Getty Images)
Jesús Herrada (Cofidis) won stage 7 of the Vuelta a España from a five-man break. The Spaniard edged out a frustrated runner-up Samuele Battistella (Astana Qazaqstan) in the sprint, after third-placed Fred Wright (Bahrain Victorious) led for most of the sprint to the line in Cistierna.
The five riders worked well together to hold off the peloton, that looked in contention to catch them all the way up until the final few kilometres.
Sam Bennett (Bora-Hansgrohe) won the sprint in the peloton to retain the green jersey, while Remco Evenepoel (QuickStep-AlphaVinyl) survived the stage unscathed to retain red.
After having to work well together all day to stay clear from a peloton led by teams committed to bringing things back for a sprint finish, only with 2km to go were they at last confident that they would not be caught.
This was when the games began and they began to slow things down, with none of the quintet wanting to lead out the sprint.
Wright ultimately took responsibility for doing so, and opened his sprint with several hundred metres to go.
The Bahrain Victorious rider looked like he might have been about to hang on too, until he tired as the line approached, allowing both Herrada from the left and Battistella from the right to pass him.
While Battistella banged his handlebars in frustration after crossing the line, Herrada was a very emotional figure at the finish, shedding tears as he was embraced by his teammate.
This was the 32-year-old’s second Grand Tour stage win, following a past success at the 2019 Vuelta.
As expected, there were no attacks from any of the GC contenders during the stage, although the day’s sole climb did see some action as Trek-Segafredo attempted to drop some of Mads Pedersen’s sprinting rivals.
They succeeded in taking both Tim Merlier (Alpecin-Deceuninck) and Pascal Ackermann (UAE Team Emirates) out of contention, and for a while Sam Bennett (Bora-Hansgrohe), although the Irishman managed to return on the following descent.
All of that was ultimately moot, however, as the peloton failed to bring back the breakaway.
How it unfolded
There were two non-starters on the stage: Jaakko Hänninen and Andrea Vendrame (both AG2R Citroën Team), both of whom had contracted COVID.
With just the one climb on the day, completed with 64km still to ride, stage 7 was expected to be a ceasefire in the GC race that ignited yesterday.
It also appeared to be favourable parcours for a breakaway to succeed, and Alexey Lutsenko (Astana Qazaqstan) was the first to try his luck.
He was brought back imminently through, and instead a group of six formed: Fred Wright (Bahrain Victorious), Jesús Herrada (Cofidis), Omar Goldstein (Israel-Premier Tech), Harry Sweeny (Lotto-Soudal), Jimmy Janssens (Alpecin-Deceuninck) and Samuele Battistella (Astana Qazaqstan).
After their respective Burgos-BH and Euskaltel Euskadi teams had missed the break, Jetse Bol and Xabier Mikel Azparren tried to bridge across, but neither succeeded, and the six out in front grew their advantage to over four minutes.
A crash by Yevgeniy Fedorov (Astana Qazaqstan) was the only moment of incident for a while, and the Kazagh had to drop to the medical car for assistance.
The pace in the peloton increased as the category one Puerto de San Glorio, through work from Trek-Segafredo, and it was clear their plan was to drop some of their sprinting rivals on the long climb.
That plan succeeded, as first Tim Merlier (Alpecin-Deceuninck) slipped out of the proton with over 15km still to climb, and then Pascal Ackermann (UAE Team Emirates) with over 10km left.
Sam Bennett (Bora-Hansgrohe) was the rider they were really worried about though, and the elastic at last snapped with only about a kilometre left to climb.
Despite this increase in pace in the peloton, the break (now absent of Goldstein, who had been dropped) managed to keep alive their chances of making it to the finish, and retained an advantage of 2:44 by the top.
Herrada attacked as the summit approached in order to gain maximum points in the mountains classification, and he remained a little out in front along with Wright, but the other three quickly regrouped on the descent.
On the descent, Bennett’s Bora-Hansgrohe teammate Danny van Poppel was working frantically to bring Bennett back to the peloton, and had a deficit of about 30 seconds to make up — a deficit it didn’t take them long to close.
With Bennett back in the bunch, the impetus went out of the pace, allowing the gap to the breakaway to grow from about 2:20 back up to 2:40.
Arkéa Samsic took it upon themselves to lead the chase for their sprinter Dan McLay, who had also made it back to the peloton on the descent having been dropped on the climb. They were supported by BikeExchange-Jayco, who were working for Kaden Groves.
But try as they might, they failed to make much inroads, and the gap hovered stubbornly above two minutes.
Only when Bora-Hansgrohe and Trek-Segafredo offered some assistance with the chase did the peloton start to drag them back, and with 20km to go the gap had come down to about 1:30.
The situation remained in the balance over the following kilometres, as the gap reduced at a slow enough rate to give the break hope of surviving. As they reached the 10km to go mark, it was at almost exactly one minute.
From that point the pendulum swung towards the break, as the gap only fell by a handful of seconds each kilometre. With 5km to go it was 50 seconds, and with 3km it was 43 seconds, at which point it became clear the break would contest for the stage win.
