Vine climbs to victory on Vuelta stage 10, Vingegaard retakes red jersey

UAE Team Emirates-XRG’s Jay Vine went for broke 5 km from the summit finish to win stage 10 of the Vuelta a Espana on Tuesday, repeating his stage six victory, while race favourite Jonas Vingegaard reclaimed the leader’s red jersey.

Vine caught and overtook Spain’s Pablo Castrillo (Movistar) on the climb to the finish of the 175.3 km ride from Parque de la Naturaleza Sendaviva to El Ferial Larra Belagua, raising two fingers as he crossed the line after his second individual stage win of this year’s race.

The 29-year-old -- mountains classification winner last year and this year’s leader of the category -- also won two stages in 2022.

“Winning is so, so hard, and it’s such an incredible feeling when it happens,” Vine said.

“I don’t think I’ll ever get used to winning, because it’s just unbelievably hard.”

Castrillo held on to take second spot, 35 seconds behind Vine, with the Spaniard’s compatriot and teammate Javier Romo finishing third.

Vingegaard (Visma-Lease a Bike) had lost the red jersey to Norway’s Torstein Traeen (Bahrain Victorious) after stage six, but having begun Tuesday’s stage 37 seconds off the lead, he opened a gap to Traeen on the final climb to move 26 seconds ahead in the general classification.

Following Monday’s rest day, Tuesday’s stage was a mostly flat ride, with one category three climb along the way before the category one finish, and any early breaks had all been quashed by the peloton.

A group, which eventually included 30 riders, made the decisive break 72km from the end, and they were allowed to get away, though the leading group was whittled down as the race wore on.

There were attacks from the breakaway, with Romo trying to get away, but when Castrillo made his move with seven kilometres remaining, the Spaniard looked set for victory, but Vine reacted and powered past the leader for another stage win.

The riders in the strung out peloton were never going to contest the stage win, but the GC battle commenced on the final climb and Vingegaard, who had already closed the gap to Traeen by winning the previous stage, returned to where everyone expected the Dane to be.

Vingegaard was part of a small group which began passing some of the breakaway riders towards the finish, and his 11th-place finish on the stage brings an end to Traeen’s time in the red jersey.

Wednesday’s stage 11 is a 157.4km medium mountain stage which starts and finishes in Bilbao.

Thomas ready for emotional farewell in Tour of Britain: Britain’s former Tour de France champion Geraint Thomas is preparing for an emotional farewell to cycling in this week’s Tour of Britain which starts in Suffolk.

The 39-year-old Welshman will compete for the last time in his storied career and will sign off with the last of the six stages finishing in his home city of Cardiff on Sunday.

Thomas, who won the Tour de France in 2018, will lead the Ineos Grenadiers team for one last time wearing a specially-designed kit featuring a doodle from his five-year-old son.

The kit will feature a Welsh dragon on the front while on the back it will have all the most successful years of his career, including Olympic track gold medals in 2008 and 2012.

A special free event is planned for the end of the race at Cardiff Castle to commemorate Thomas’s career.

“I couldn’t finish my career without a proper goodbye could I? Excited to announce our plans for an event at Cardiff Castle after the final Tour of Britain stage on Sunday,” Thomas said in a social media post. “I’m told it’s going to be a lot of fun.”

Agencies