Vuelta a España stage 8: Jasper Philipsen claims second stage victory in chaotic sprint

Alpecin-Deceuninck's Jasper Philipsen sprinted to victory on stage 8 of the Vuelta a España, expertly navigating a chaotic finish to take the victory in Zaragoza.

After missing out on stage 4, the race's next sprint stage was a big goal for the Belgian, who started the stage as a clear favourite, and despite a messy, disorganised lead-out, he came past Elia Viviani (Lotto) at the final moment to claim the win.

Viviani crossed the line in second place, just half a wheel behind Philipsen after leading towards the line, but was later relegated to 105th place.

Ethan Vernan (Israel-Premier Tech) moved up to second place, and Arne Marit (Intermarché-Wanty) took third.

"We won, so we cannot complain," Philipsen said after the win, despite being boxed in at points.

"We lost my teammate, I think he did an incredible lead-out again but he was not there, and I tried to communicate, but it's difficult in the last kilometre, and I had to find my way, take a bit of extra wind, and really come late because my legs were concrete. But I just managed to win, so I'm really happy, and the effort of the team has not been for nothing."

This win marks Philipsen's 15th Grand Tour stage win, after winning the opening stage of this Vuelta, though there aren't many more opportunities in this race for the fast men.

"Every Grand Tour win is always a special one, and it's never easy. You suffer a lot of days in the mountains to get here. From now on it's going to be a tough Vuelta, but with the win, that always makes it a bit more easy."

Despite wearing the green jersey, Mads Pedersen (Lidl-Trek) failed to crack the top 10 on a stage that proved best-suited to the purest sprinters.

A breakaway of three riders – Sergio Samitier (Cofidis), Joan Bou (Caga Rural-Seguros RGA) and José Luis Faura (Burgos Burpellet BH) – had been away all day, but were reeled in with 17km to go in advance of the sprint finish.

Finishing in the bunch, Torstein Træen (Bahrain Victorious) retained the red jersey for another day with no notable changes on GC.

How it unfolded

Stage 8 of the Vuelta was completely flat for 163km, with not even a categorised climb in sight as all signs pointed towards a sprint finish. As a result of the relaxed parcours, there was also a fairly relaxed pace at the start of the day. A three-man breakaway was let away easily in the first 5km of racing, made up of Sergio Samitier (Cofidis), Joan Bou (Caja Rural-Seguros RGA) and José Luis Faura (Burgos Burpellet BH).

They quickly built up a lead of three minutes, and it was a very uneventful first 50km, with the peloton well down on even the slowest predicted schedule after the first couple of hours of racing.

Through the middle part of the stage, the gap remained stable at around 3:15, as the leaders rode well together, and Alpecin-Deceuninck took up the job of controlling the pace on the front of the peloton, setting their intentions early.

With 60km to go, the peloton began to ramp things up ever so slightly, with the time gap dipping below three minutes for the first time. With a technical lap concluding the stage, there was plenty of incentive to be near the front and organised well before the race arrived in Zaragoza for the first time with 23km to go.

The gap then came down quite steadily, falling below two minutes with 45km to go, and the peloton picked up even more when the intermediate sprint approached, with a few points remaining for the peloton after the break took the top three spots. It was Mads Pedersen who just beat Ethan Vernon to the line, adding 13 points to his green jersey tally, though Philipsen did not get involved in the intermediate sprint.

With 30km to go, the gap was a minute and falling as the teams fanned across the roads on the way into Zaragoza and a first viewing of the final 3km before the sprint. With 24km to go, Faura was the first to lose contact with the breakaway as the other two escapees battled to hold on as long as possible.

Behind, there was a fierce fight for position in the bunch, with the GC teams and sprint teams all lining up on the wide roads on the edge of the city. With 17km to go, both Samitier and Bou were caught, but it was still mainly the GC teams dominating the front of the bunch, with the sprint trains not going too early.

Though the wide roads in the run-in gave plenty of space at first, it was still tense and fast, especially with the roads narrowing as the finish line got closer. Going into the last 8km, the sprint teams came more to the fore, with Alpecin and Lidl-Trek trying to stay out of the wind as long as possible and letting the likes of EF Education-EasyPost and Picnic PostNL do the work.

Alpecin came to the front with 4km to go, but it was a tough battle for position in the finale, with it increasingly hard to stay organised, and the lead-out was markedly messy with Philipsen losing his last lead-out man fairly early. Instead, he had to surf the wheels himself, and for a while it looked like he may have been boxed out, but he found a way to the front to come around Viviani at just the last minute. The Italian held on for second whilst Vernon took third with sprinters spread all across the road.

Pedersen suffered amongst the chaos, finishing 11th on the day, whilst stage 4 winner Ben Turner (Ineos Grenadiers) took 10th despite the best lead-out efforts of Filippo Ganna. Many other sprinters were also crowded out in the messy finish, with riders like Casper van Uden (Picnic PostNL) and Tim van Dijke (Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe) not even in the top 10 despite their teams' efforts.

With all the GC favourites finishing in the bunch, there were no significant changes to the overall standings with Træen holding onto the red jersey for another day, though things are set to change as soon as Sunday, with a summit finish to come at the Valdezcaray ski station.

Results

Results powered by FirstCycling