NOS Cycling•today, 17:48
Van Aert drops out of Vuelta after crash, Roglic just misses out on red jersey on final climb
Wout van Aert has abandoned the Tour of Spain. The Belgian crashed into a rock face in the sixteenth stage, which was won by Marc Soler, and had to dismount with injuries to his knee and arm. Van Aert was taken to hospital for examinations, reports team manager Grischa Niermann.
Primoz Roglic just failed to take the lead in the general classification from Ben O’Connor on the Lagos de Covadonga, but he did make a significant move on the tough final climb. He is now only five seconds behind.
For Van Aert of Visma-Lease a Bike, the race in which he was finally able to show his old form came to a sad end. He took three stage wins, had the green points jersey firmly around his shoulders and was on course to also win the mountain classification. And that after a year full of setbacks.
Instead, today another chapter has been added to his disastrous season. At the beginning of the season, his spring was already cut short after he suffered multiple broken bones in a heavy crash in Dwars door Vlaanderen.
Tough mountain ride
After a well-deserved rest day on Monday – the day before the toughest stage of the race was on the programme – the riders started another tough mountain stage in the northwest of Spain today, which took them over 181 kilometres from Luanco to Lagos de Covadonga.
The story of Sunday’s gruelling stage was Primoz Roglic’s failed master plan. The Slovenian hoped to ride classification leader Ben O’Connor out of the red with a bike change, but only reduced his deficit by a few seconds, thanks in part to a time penalty.
Today’s stage confirmed once again that the Tour of Spain is unpredictable. This time, Van Aert played the leading role. The Belgian had the green points jersey firmly on his shoulders, but was forced to give up.
rock wall
Van Aert had once again demonstrated on the first two serious climbs of the day – Mirador del Fito and Collada Llomena – that he had the best climbing legs. But with fifty kilometres to go he fell hard.
It was raining on the slopes of Lagos de Covadonga and Van Aert was not careful enough on a descent. In a bend he hit a rock face and hurt himself so badly that he had to get off, groaning in pain.
At that time he was part of a leading group of seventeen riders. Martijn Tusveld was also part of it, as were UAE teammates Isaac Del Toro, Jay Vine and Marc Soler.
Van Aert drops out of Vuelta after hard fall against rock face
Earlier in the afternoon, Van Aert had also fallen, just after the start. This put an early end to his early escape attempt. He was then able to continue and rejoined in time.
New leaders
Van Aert not only led the points classification, but also led the mountains classification. Kaden Groves (points) and Jay Vine (mountain) took over the top positions from him.
In the meantime, the leading group had shrunk to twelve riders. Del Toro, who had fallen in the same bend as Van Aert, was able to continue and returned to the front. This meant that three riders from UAE Team Emirates were back in front: Del Toro, Vine and Soler.
The leading group started the final climb, the Lagos de Covadonga, with a nice lead. With gradients of up to twenty percent, it was a very tough climb.
It was Soler who made several attacks and with four kilometers to go only Max Poole and Filippo Zana were behind him. The Spaniard eventually crossed the line solo. Zana came second, Poole finished third.
Battle for the seconds
Behind the leaders, the battle for seconds then broke out. Roglic eventually came up five seconds short of taking over the red jersey from O’Connor today.
Thus, today’s story was not the changing of the guard at the top of the general classification, but the exit of the unfortunate Van Aert.
