Vuelta a San Juan: Stybar wins stage 6 at Autódromo Villicum

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It all seemed to be playing out according to the established script, only for Zdenek Stybar (Deceuninck-Quick-Step) to force a late rewrite by denying the sprinters on stage 6 of the Vuelta a San Juan.

Stybar poked out an opportunity when he powered clear with a shade under 500 metres remaining, and he had the strength to seize it as he held off Sebastian Molano (UAE Team Emirates) and Rudy Barbier (Israel Start-Up Nation) to claim victory on the motor racing circuit in El Villicum.

The wide bends of the Autodromo seemed to lend themselves to a well drilled lead-out train, and when Fernando Gaviria's UAE Team Emirates squad hit the front a half-kilometre from the finish, the Colombian looked poised to land his third win of the week.

Almost at that precise moment, however, Stybar launched a determined acceleration on the left-hand side of the track, seizing a notable advantage as he cruised through the left-hand corner that followed. By the time Stybar swung around the final bend, his margin was a winning one, and he had time to savour his victory while Molano pipped Barbier in the suddenly fragmented bunch sprint behind.

Stybar's triumph may have looked like an lib, but it was, he said, the result of careful planning. In the days leading up to the Vuelta a San Juan, he had trained on the track with his team and realised its potential for a late ambush. Despite the presence of sprinter Alvaro Hodeg and race leader Remco Evenepoel in the Deceuninck-QuickStep squad, Stybar was given the green light at directeur sportif Davide Bramati's briefing on Saturday afternoon.

"I had a free role today so I could try to jump in the last kilometre, but that could also help to make a good position for Alvaro [Hodeg], so it was a win-win situation," Stybar said afterwards. "We did some training here last week. We were having fun here with the guys but we also tried in the last km to make a big attack. So today in the team meeting we decided that I'd try."

Manuel Belletti (Androni-Sidermec) took 4th on the stage ahead of the Bora-Hansgrohe duo of Daniel Oss and Peter Sagan, while Gaviria had to settle for 12th after Stybar's well-executed effort disrupted the workings of his UAE Team Emirates sprint train. The Colombian will have an opportunity to secure a hat-trick of stage wins on Sunday's concluding leg, which features nine laps of a flat and seemingly uncomplicated circuit in the provincial capital.

That stage should also see the 20-year-old Evenepoel crowned as overall winner of the Vuelta a San Juan. The Belgian fought back after getting caught out in the crosswinds on stage 5 and he made sure he was on the right side of a split that temporarily formed with a shade over 80km remaining here. 

"I wanted to take a small revenge on yesterday," Evenepoel said afterwards. "We knew the wind could be strong, so it was always better to be in front 20 positions."

The peloton reformed shortly afterwards, and Evenepoel finished safely with his closest rivals on the general classification. He carries a buffer of 33 seconds over Filippo Ganna (Italy) into the final leg, while Oscar Sevilla (Team Medellin) lies in third at 1:01, with Brandon McNulty (UAE Team Emirates) a further 20 seconds back in fourth.

How it unfolded

When the peloton was flagged away in the searing afternoon heat, there was, for once, relatively little appetite for attacking and the day's early break formed without undue duress. Jokin Aranburu Arruti (Fundacion-Orbea), Veljko Stojnic (Vini Zabu' KTM), and Christofer Jurado (Panama) clipped off the front in the opening kilometres and they quickly amassed a lead of more than 4 minutes before UAE Team Emirates and Israel Start-Up Nation began to reel them in.

That hitherto languid pursuit accelerated rapidly on the run-in to the second of two ascents of the category 3 Alto de las Vacas, and after the escapees were swept up, Oscar Sevilla (Team Medellin) led Guillaume Martin (Cofidis) over the summit with a little over 80km to go. 

"Today could be dangerous with the wind," Sevilla had warned before the start at the auto racing track in El Villicum, and his vigilance was well placed, as there was no let-up in intensity over the other side of the climb.

Mindful of the myriad possibilities – almost all of them painful – offered by the exposed roads and gusting winds, UAE Team Emirates, Bora-Hansgrohe and Deceuninck-QuickStep all vied for position at the head of the field, and their combined forcing saw the field briefly splinter in echelons.

After his travails on the road to the Alto Colorado twenty-four hours previously, Evenepoel made sure not to get fooled again. There was a certain defiance about the way the white jersey came to the front in person to try to bring the lead group further clear of those scrambling behind, but the panic abated when the route swung into a headwind and the peloton reformed.

With calm restored in the bunch, another breakaway took shape with 70km to go, as Mirco Maestri (Bardiani-CSF-Faizanè), Augustin Fraysse (Argentina), Laureano Rosas (Transportes Puertas de Cuyo) and Andrea Di Renzo (Vini Zabù-KTM) moved clear, establishing a buffer of a minute. When that quartet was swept up with 17km remaining, the stage looked destined to finish in a bunch sprint. It remained that way until Stybar lifted himself from the saddle with two bends to go.

Results

General classification