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Jonas Vingegaard attacked and didn’t look back on the final, short climb to Beyes, taking out the stage win and also drawing closer to moving into the red jersey after leaving the other general classification contenders behind.
The climb to Beyes was inconsistent and very steep in parts with Vingegaard attacking on one of the toughest sections with 3.9 kilometres remaining.
No one could match the acceleration, and the other favourites then settled into an uneasy, slow tempo as they didn’t commit to pace setting to chase the Tour de France winner. A number of lesser climbers took off in pursuit, with Finn Fisher-Black (UAE Team Emirates), Michael Storer (Groupama-FDJ) and Woet Poels (Bahrain Victorious) on the move.
Vingegaard continued to extend his lead to a minute and 12 second, but eventually attacks from Juan Ayuso (UAE Team Emirates) and Primoz Roglic (Jumbo-Visma) picked up the pace, and they pulled back a bit of time in the final kilometre. Vingegaard won the stage convincingly, with Fisher-Black second, Poels third and Storer fourth, while Ayuso was the first of the general classification riders to cross the line 1’01 behind.
Race leader Sepp Kuss (Jumbo-Visma) crossed the line 1’08 down on his teammate, retaining the red jersey for another day, just 29 seconds ahead of Vingegaard, who moved ahead of Roglic into second overall.
A car crash for teammate Nathan van Hooydonck weighed heavily on Jumbo-Visma and Vingegaard throughout the stage, with the Danish star dedicating the win to his teammate in hospital.
“Yes, it’s a very emotional victory,” said Vingegaard, “and now I’ll have to be careful not to cry again.
“This morning we got the terrible news and I think it affected everyone in the team. He’s my best friend and I wanted to win for him so badly, to dedicate the win to him.”
At the base of the final climb a message was relayed via team radio that Van Hooydonck was awake and in a better condition than first thought.
“Luckily now there is good news about his condition so that’s a big relief for me and for the team and I hope he will recover soon,” said Vingegaard.
The switch of spots between Roglic and Vingegaard was the only change in the top 10 overall, but Kaden Groves (Alpecin-Deceuninck) was very active in the breakaways, making sure he was in every move so he could secure the intermediate sprint points and push out his lead in the green jersey classification.
La Vuelta continues tonight with a summit finish to the Angliru, renowned as one of the toughest climbs in professional cycling, and often featuring at past Vueltas as a decisive stage.
Watch Stage 17 from 10:50 AEST on SBS VICELAND and SBS On Demand.
