Ten days ago, Eddie Dunbar (Jayco AlUla) took the biggest win of his career at the Vuelta a España but now he’s managed to surpass it at the very same race, launching out of the group of GC favourites 5km from the line on stage 20 to win solo atop Picón Blanco.
When the Irishman made his move, he still had lone attacker Pavel Sivakov (UAE Team Emirates) to reel in, however, he dispatched with him quickly before managing to hold a lead that ebbed and flowed around the 10-second mark all the way to the finish ahead of Enric Mas (Movistar) who was the best of the GC men.
After a dramatic chase unfolded to reel back Dunbar that was unsuccessful, race leader Primož Roglič (Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe) managed third on the day to keep his overall lead from Ben O’Connor (Decathlon AG2R La Mondiale) in second.
The Australian fought valiantly and was helped by Felix Gall to maintain his second position on GC ahead of Mas going into the final time trial, where he has nine seconds to defend his best-ever Grand Tour finish.
Dunbar’s first Vuelta stage win was sweet and came on a flat finish where he outfoxed his breakaway compatriots on stage 11 in Padron, however, today’s was the queen stage of a Grand Tour, making it all the more sweeter for the 28-year-old.
“I said to a few people after the [first] stage win last week that it was never the way I expected to win a Grand Tour stage. I always imagined winning on top of a climb, whether it was from a breakaway or the GC group, and I just felt good that second part today and I backed myself on that climb. This one definitely feels a bit sweeter,” said Dunbar after the stage.
“I’m 12 minutes down on GC, I knew I’d get a bit of leeway, I think they gave me that, but I’m just super happy that I could hold on today. Moments like this don’t come around too often. I’ve had two of them now in the last two weeks and I’m just looking forward to sharing these moments with friends and family.”
How it unfolded
As the 2024 Vuelta a España departed for its final road stage and final day in the mountains, there was tension right from the start, knowing that a brutal 172km of climbing with over 5000m of elevation gain awaited on one of the hardest Grand Tour stages of the season.
Kasper Asgreen (T-Rex Quick-Step) got the attacks going from the flag drop, highlighting Mikel Landa’s intentions to rise up the GC after losing significant time on stage 18. However, with the roads heading uphill straight away, it wouldn’t be the Dane who made the difference.
The strongest climbers who have characterised much of this Vuelta’s breakaways again rose to the top, forming a group of 11 over the category 3 ascent to Las Estacas de Trueba (9.2 km à 3%): Jay Vine, Marc Soler (UAE Team Emirates), Clément Berthet (Decathlon AG2R La Mondiale), Marco Frigo (Israel-Premier Tech), Harold Tejada (Astana Qazaqstan), Sylvain Moniquet (Lotto Dstny), Carlos Canal (Movistar) Jack Haig (Bahrain Victorious), Enzo Leijnse (DSM-Firmenich-PostNL), Thomas Champion (Cofidis) and Pablo Castrillo (Kern Pharma),
This ended up being a group of 10 for the day when Leijnse dropped back to try and help Max Poole bridge the gap, however, this failed and both were swallowed up by the chasing peloton.
UAE Team Emirates dominated the fight for KOM points in the break as the seven categorised climbs came thick and fast en route to Picón Blanco, with Vine and Soler swapping who would get the maximum haul over the initial five ascents. This left them equal on 76 points heading into the final two cat. 1 climbs.
Behind, while the gap was being kept tight by the T-Rex QuickStep-led peloton working for Landa, the biggest action was the reduction in strength of Roglič’s team. 24 hours ago they were showing off their superiority up the climb to Moncalvillo, however, now they were falling away with rumoured illness, both climbers Aleksandr Vlasov and Dani Martínez dropping early and abandoning the race, before Nico Denz followed suit and left Roglič isolated.
Despite attacking in typical Marc Soler fashion throughout the opening 130km, the never-say-die Spaniard finally ended his effort with 36.5km to go on the penultimate climb to Puerto de Los Tornos, leaving Vine with Berthet as the strongest break riders to go off and try to confirm his lead in the KOM classification.
But the action was still bubbling over behind for Quick-Step, who put Cattaneo on the front to do a huge pull in aid of Landa’s GC aims, which at points separated the group of favourites, however, ultimately left Landa struggling when his attack didn’t work inside the final 30km.
This acceleration swept up the two remaining break riders but not many of the leaders still in the group had any teammates to do the pacing. This helped Vine, who was able to mop up two points at the KOM sprint behind his teammate Pavel Sivakov, who attacked away solo, Mas and one of Roglič’s teammates Adria.
Sivakov had a narrow lead for much of the climb after attacking away but built this out to over a minute in the descent and approach to the foot of the final, hellish climb to Picón Blanco - a 7.9km ascent averaging 9.1% with maximum gradients reaching 18%.
As the rumours continued to swirl on what had happened to Roglič’s troops, Adria and Lipowitz proved themselves to again be invaluable as they hit the front for their leader with 7km to go and started to wind up the mountain lead-out.
They left it up to the imperious Slovenian with 6.2km to go, as Roglič began tapping away on the 16% sections without a full attack by any means. Sivakov’s lead melted away to 40 seconds under the controlled pace on Roglič.
Without Roglič fully attacking, Dunbar took his chances and set off in pursuit of Sivakov in front, being allowed to get away with 5km due to starting the day way down on GC some 13:31 minutes off the lead.
The Irishman quickly swept up the UAE rider and took the lead as the likes of David Gaudu (Groupama-FDJ) and stage winner Urko Berrade (Kern Pharma) tried to attack away from the hesitant GC group.
This hesitation would last until the final kilometre, when Dunbar went into and emerged from a cloud atop the climb with a 10-second lead still intact and just the final few corners to navigate.
He didn’t falter and kept his effort with gritted teeth right through to the finish line for victory, as Mas finally got a small gap behind and beat Roglič by three seconds, eventually gaining five on his rival at the line thanks to bonus seconds.
But Roglič had stayed calm and rode the climb in total control, even without the full outfit or Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe teammates, holding onto a lead of over two minutes on both O’Connor, who held onto second, and Mas, heading into the final stage time trial tomorrow in Madrid.
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