As it happened: Victory for Groves, red jersey for Van Aert in Vuelta a España stage 2 sprint

Hello and welcome to Cyclingnews' live coverage of stage 2 of the 2024 Vuelta a España!

The Vuelta got underway yesterday with a short and blustery time trial in Lisbon. Brandon McNulty (UAE Team Emirates) was the winner, earning the honour of wearing the leader's red jersey for today's stage, an opening mass-start road stage that will take the riders north from Cascais to Ourém. 

It's listed as a medium mountain stage but isn't quite as difficult as that, although the parcours does undulate throughout, and there is a category-4 climb that tops out 20km from home. We should see a sprint of some description and, given parcours plus the dearth of pure sprinters here, Wout van Aert and Kaden Groves are the likeliest lads. 

To catch up on yesterday's action, including the early differences between the overall contenders, here's our stage report complete with full results.

Vuelta a España: Brandon McNulty storms to opening stage 1 time trial win, takes first leader’s jersey

The riders are currently signing on for the stage. They'll be rolling out at 11:50 local time, so in around 15 minutes, and then the race proper will be waved underway around 15 minutes after that. 

News just in, UAE Team Emirates have been fined for wearing special jerseys to Friday's teams presentation, honouring Tadej Pogačar's Giro-Tour double. It was deemed 'non-compliant' by the UCI, who will have been salivating as they hurriedly reached for the invoice book and drew up fines of 500 Swiss Francs per rider (and one staff member). £3,500 in total - that Christmas party in Aigle won't pay for itself, after all.

UAE Team Emirates sanctioned for 'non-compliant' jersey at Vuelta a España team presentation

This is the scene at the start in Cascais. Could be worse. 

We're on the move. Well, the riders are. 7km neutral zone then we'll be underway. 

The stage is about to be waved underway, and it should be an action-packed start, as the road climbs straight away up the Alto de Lagoa Azul, a category-4 climb where the battle for the mountains jersey will begin and a breakaway could start to take shape.

We're off!

The flag is waved and stage 2 of the Vuelta is underway.

The first attacks, predictably, come from the Spanish second-division squads. 

This climb measures 5.7km at an average gradient of 4.6%.

Two riders on the move initially: Ibon Ruiz (Kern Pharma) and Luis Angel Maté (Euskaltel-Euskadi) 

Just a two-man breakaway today, by the looks of it. The Spanish duo open a lead of almost two minutes on the climb.

Maté beats Ruiz to the top of the Alto do Lagoa Azul, taking the lead in the mountains classification, although there is another cat-4 to come later. 

The peloton is at 3:30 as they crest the climb. The day's breakaway appears to have flown, and with only two men in there it should be simple enough to control.

Here are the jersey wearers on the start line a little earlier. McNulty in red as the overall leader, and he also owns green which is on loan on the shoulders of Wout van Aert, who is actually third in the points classification but Mathias Vacek prioritises white as the outright leader of the youth classification. 

Stefan Küng is there in the polka dots, for some reason. No KOM points were awarded yesterday, so the mountains classification isn't up and running yet, but you've got to keep your sponsors happy and the top three all already have jerseys so might as well hand it to the fourth-place finisher. 

It seems the gap is not being allowed to grow out any greater than 3:30.

The leash is slackened now, and the leading duo stretch their advantage towards the five-minute mark.

A first shot of our breakaway duo.

Visma-Lease a Bike and Alpecin-Deceuninck, the teams of Wout van Aert and Kaden Groves respectively, have been working on the front of the peloton, although in truth it's a very gentle day so far. 

It's really hard to look beyond Van Aert or Groves for today's win. The sprinting field here is pitifully thin, but that's because there are so few stages for them. Bryan Coquard (Cofidis) will be in with a shout - he recently won a stage of the Tour de Suisse, which was only his second WorldTour win from a career collection of 50-odd. Beyond that, names like Corbin Strong (Israel-Premier Tech) and Pavel Bittner (dsm-firmenich-PostNL) crop up. 

The gap has come back down to 3:30 after 45km. 

The average speed for the day is barely scraping 33km/h. The slowest predicted schedule supplied by the organisers is for 42kp/h. Things will speed up later but this is a slow amble so far. 

There's a pretty stiff headwind for most of the day, which would go some way to explaining the lack of pace. 

A hard sell, this 33km/h two-man breakaway stage. Do stick around, but you might also want to know we have live coverage of the Tour de France Femmes grand finale, which you can find here.

The gap has come down to 2:30 and the leading duo have lifted the pace accordingly. 

This is the last of 12 Vueltas for Luis Angel Maté, who will retire at the end of the season at the age of 40. The Spaniard has won stages of the past two editions of the Volta a Portugal, which has doubled his career win tally. Really, he's a proper breakaway merchant, living for the simple thrill of getting out there and making something happen. He even started planting trees a couple of years ago for every kilometre he spent out front at the Vuelta. You sense he'll be making the most of these 21 stages before he has to hang up his wheels.

Ibon Ruiz, by contrast, is a Vuelta debutant, and a Grand Tour debutant. Having come through the Lizarte set-up, he turned pro with Kern Pharma in 2020 and now, at the age of 25, he gets his first shot at a three-week race. Like Maté, he's a breakaway man, and his particular penchant is the KOM jersey, which he won at the Vuelta a Asturias earlier this year. It's unlikely he'll be pulling it on today, given he was pipped by Maté on the opening climb and the peloton could well sweep them up by the last climb, but the Vuelta is long and it won't be a surprise to see him up the road again in the future. 

Maté and Ruiz have just over three minutes in hand with just over 100km remaining. 

A shot of McNulty in red

Here's what Wout van Aert had to say at the start this morning. 

"To be honest, we also want to go for the green jersey in this Vuelta, but that starts with good results. The main goal is, of course, winning a stage. There’s a lot of opportunities, we will see the race goes. But, for sure, it is a stage I look forward to. Maybe it would be easier to control the race [with more sprinter’s teams], but I have a lot of confidence in my team that they are really strong. And also with Alpecin and Groves you can expect some help or some interest in a sprint, so we will be fine."

Van Aert has the added incentive of the red jersey. Given the bonus seconds on the line, and the likely absence of McNulty and Vacek from bunch sprints, a place in the top three would surely be enough to move into the overall lead. 

For more on Van Aert, here's Alasdair Fotheringham's reaction piece after yesterday's time trial. 

Wout van Aert determined to battle for Vuelta a España red jersey after near TT miss

Both groups have picked up the pace. 2:20 is the gap with 92km to go. 

First crash of the 2024 Vuelta. It's a seemingly minor spill involving Dylan van Baarle (Visma-Lease a Bike) and Rainer Kepplinger from Bahrain Victorious. They were going through the feed zone.

Van Baarle, the former Paris-Roubaix winner, takes a while to get back to his feet and is riding gingerly as he gets going again. His team are still on the front.

an Baarle is back on the back of the bunch, which had slowed slightly, allowing the breakaway duo to move back out to three minutes.

We're passing through Caldas da Rainha, which is packed with fans. That'll be because it's the hometown of João Almeida (UAE Team Emirates), who made an impressive start in yesterday's time trial.

80km to go

80km to go and the gap between break and bunch stands at 2:35.

Lovely piece of street art just then

Here's what Kaden Groves had to say at the start of the day

“I think it’s gonna be a really nervous stage but I expect a sprint at the finish, hopefully with a complete peloton and a full team but it could also go an other way with the wind. I don’t know if we can expect echelons but I expect a really hard day. I think [the climb with 20km to go] should be okay. I think I’ve shown in the past that I can survive hard finals and I don’t think today should be any different. I don’t know [if Wout van Aert is the favourite]. I think I should still be the favourite for today. Obviously he’s gonna try to get some seconds with bonifications to try and take the red jersey but that actually also plays in our favour that they want a bunch sprint.”

Intermediate sprint coming up in Alcobaça, which also carries bonus seconds for the overall classification. 

The pace in the bunch picks up as they dip downhill towards this intermediate sprint. The gap to the two leaders dips below the two-minute mark.

60km to go

Visma continue the charge towards the intermediate sprint. It's 5km away and the gap is tumbling - 1:15 now.

As his teammates lift the pace, Van Baarle is dropped on a small incline. The Dutchman crashed earlier in a feed zone and is clearly struggling. 

The leaders come into Alcobaça and Ruiz opens the sprint for the intermediate, but Maté responds and gets him on the line. 

And the peloton is close at hand and the sprinters are already hitting out...

Groves gets there first ahead of Van Aert, picking up the next best collection of points for the green jersey classification. An early taster of the real battle to come later.

The sprint also carried GC bonuses, not that they matter too much, with Maté, Ruiz, and Groves the beneficiaries but already well down on GC and not interested in time gains. 

After that acceleration towards the sprint, and the sprint itself, the peloton has closed to within 20 seconds of the break, who appear set to call it off. 

And there it is. A final glance around, a sporting handshake, and the pair of them slot back into the peloton. All together again with 52km to go. 

A reminder of the stage profile and map. The wind is blowing from the north west, so the headwind will soon be over and it'll turn to something more like a cross-tail on the approach to the final climb. 

It was an early breakaway catch but there seems to be no appetite for fresh attacks. All together.

40km to go

Into the final 40 now and the pace has picked up in the peloton, with multiple teams forming trains.

Dylan van Baarle has abandoned the Vuelta. He crashed in a feed zone earlier and had been struggling ever since. A blow for Visma-Lease a Bike - for Sepp Kuss and Wout van Aert alike. 

The average speed clock shows 35km/h, which is pedestrian by professional standards, but the speed right now is a good bit higher than that. 

A long straight road here but they'll soon be making that turn east to head towards our late climb. 

Red Bull and T-Rex jostle on the right, Ineos and UAE on the left. Plenty of trains spread across the wide road right now.

5km to the foot of the Alto da Batalha. It's 7.1km at an average gradient of 3.3%. It's preceded by a little kicker, too.

Attack!

It's Mauri Vansevenant from T-Rex-QuickStep. The springy Belgian looks to shake things up.

Marc Soler (UAE), who's only just got back on after a mechanical, jumps out after him and the pair go clear.

More riders attack from behind now as we head up that kicker.

Stefan Küng (Groupama-FDJ) is in a chasing trio that has worked its way across.

Five men at the front but Visma are shutting this one down through Attila Valter.

Küng's teammates Kevin Geniets, and Intermarché's Kobe Goosens, were the other members of the move but it has come to nothing and now they dip downhill to the foot of the cat-4 climb. All together. 

No movement on the early slopes of the climb, although FDJ, Red Bull, Decathlon, and UAE are holding strong positions. Visma still in control on the left.

Plenty of fans on this climb, and plenty of noise. 

A man stripped down to his underwear gets dangerously close to the riders, and all of a sudden we see his yellow wig in the middle of the bunch. No crashes but a little disruption there.

Red Bull take it up on the climb. 

Crash. We do have a spill now and white jersey Vacek is on the deck.

It looked like there might have been some spectator involvement there but we'll wait to see if any replay comes along.

Vacek is back up and chasing at 45 seconds. No replay of the incident but he did wave his arm in remonstration with a group of spectators.

Downhill and flat section so speeds are high ahead of the final portion of this climb.

Alpecin come forward on the right as they head into the final kilometre of the climb. Teams just jostling to hold position here. 

They come to the top of the climb and Küng accelerates to help himself to the two mountains points on offer.

Küng is already wearing the KOM jersey - not that any points were awarded in the mountains classification yesterday - and he clearly fancies another day in it. Those two points take him level with breakaway man Luis Angel Maté, so it'll come down to stage placings.

A plateau here before the road tilts downhill towards the final few kilometres. 

15km to go

Alpecin are still dominating on the right-hand side of the road. Bora, Visma, Bahrain, FDJ all prominent. 

Vacek rejoins the peloton.

Red Bull lift the pace as the road tilts downhill. 75km/h now.

10km to go

Into the final 10 and we're going to get that full bunch sprint, with Van Aert, Groves, and Coquard the leading favourites. 

The road will flatten out with 5km to go but the final 500m actually drag up slightly.

Still Red Bull on the front. They don't have a big name sprinter here but are keen to keep Primož Roglič safe.

Ineos come forward now. They're also looking to keep GC men safe, in this case Josh Tarling leading Thymen Arensman and Carlos Rodriguez.

Alpecin and Ineos share the front as we enter the final 5km.

EF and DSM suddenly appear. It's a little messy and we have some road furniture coming up.

DSM, who have Pavel Bittner here, lead into the final 3km.

They hit 75km/h again as the road dips downhill into town. 

Alpecin reassert themselves now. 

Crash! High-speed touch of bodies there and a few are down. 

The race marches on into the final 2km.

Affini hits the front for Visma. Van Aert is in tow.

Affini leads into the final km. Van Aert second wheel. 

Groves is on Van Aert's wheel.

Long lead-out this from Affini who can't afford to drop Van Aert off too soon.

Affini still on the front. 300 to go.

Van Aert opens it!

Groves comes through, and takes it!!!

Kaden Groves (Alpecin-Deceuninck) wins stage 2 of the Vuelta a España

Corbin Strong came through to rival Van Aert for second place there. Either way, Van Aert is going into the red jersey as overall leader.

Van Aert opened it up after the long leadout from his teammate but Groves was perfectly positioned and wasted little time in the slipstream before hitting out himself, and in the end it was convincing and he powered through the middle. Strong was gaining on Van Aert but the Belgian just held on for second. 

Results

It looks like everyone involved in that late crash has crossed the line. Josh Tarling was the worst off, slumped against a wall at the time, but he limps across the line with his jersey badly ripped. 

Let's hear from the winner, Kaden Groves, who already had four Vuelta stage wins to his name and now picks up his fifth with his first win of the 2024 season

"It's a really nice way to start this Vuelta. It's been a hard year for myself, not having a win yet, but I came here super motivated to change that, and I've got to thank my team for a really strong ride today."

As for following Van Aert's wheel in the finale: "It wasn't the plan but my two leadout men had problems with the bikes, so I actually missed them both in the final. Normally, it might have been the opposite."

The finish line shot

Van Aert pulls on the red jersey as the new overal leader. He leads McNulty by three seconds and and Vacek by five seconds. 

Let's hear from Van Aert in red

"If course, I wanted to win this stage, my team did a really good job to make it a bunch sprint so it's unfortunate to arrive second, but today I knew that finishing in the first three meant the red jersey, so after all it's a good day. 

"I knew before that [Groves] is super fast. I got led out really strong by Edoardo Affini, but it was difficult to time the sprint well because the guys from behind maybe carried a bit more speed, so that's maybe something we should have looked to, but Kaden passed me really strong and deserved his win."