After four attempts at this Vueltathe Spanish Marc Soler (UAE) has won the 16th stage in the Lakes of Covadonga while Ben O’Connor (Decathlon) has saved the lead by the skin of his teeth in the legendary Asturian climb, where Enrique Mas (Movistar) has again put Primoz Roglic (Red Bull) in trouble at times.
Soler, who had finished third in three mountain stages before Tuesday and was instrumental in his teammate Adam Yates’ victory in another, was this time the best of the day’s breakaway.
In that close escape, in which 17 cyclists got into the race without any danger to the general classification, there was also the Belgian for another day. Wout van Aertwho was the worst off in a fall on the descent of Collada Llomena, where he crashed into a slope and crushed his knee.
Van Aert suffers a hard fall on a descent in the Vuelta
The Visma team rider was going Outstanding leader of regularity and also of the mountain After having already crashed in the lead over the first two mountain passes of this stage, Van Aert, one of the great stars of cycling, has left this Vuelta with three stage victories and now his participation in the World Championships in a month is up in the air.
In the peloton, the Decathlon team set a fast pace after Fito’s descent, when the breakaway had reached 10 minutes of advantage, and then Movistar doubled its bet on Collada Llomenawhere Mas made a first attack almost 60 km from the finish.
There, the contenders for the final victory responded quickly, but then he tested it again on the hardest slopes of the Lakes, in La Huesera, where O’Connor gave in and made Roglic sufferThe Slovenian arrived on the Spaniard’s wheel and although the latter tried again for a third time, in the end he could not get past the Slovenian and reached the finish line together with the three-time Vuelta champion and the Ecuadorian Richard Carapaz (EF).
Behind, O’Connor regulated and has kept the red jersey One more day, although the Australian now only has a 5 second advantage over Roglic. Mas is 1:35 behind, Carapaz 1:46 behind and Mikel Landa – who was the first to try in the Lakes – 2:18 behind.
On Wednesday, the 17th stage will go from Arnuero to Santander on a 141 km route through Cantabria that includes two second-category climbs in the middle section, but which has a rather flat finish.
