CISTIERNA, SPAIN: Jesus Herrada of Cofidis won stage seven of the Vuelta a Espana on Friday when an escape group beat the chasing pack over the 190km from Camargo to Cistierna in Castilla and Leon.
The race ended in a razor-edge, five-way dash for the line with Samuele Battistella of Astana coming second and Britain’s Fred Wright of Bahrain Victorious in third.
Remco Evenepoel maintained the overall lead as the main contenders took it easy with two major mountain stages coming up over the weekend.
Friday’s main challenge was the Puerto de San Glorio climb with 22.4km at 5.5 percent incline to an altitude of 1600m where some of the sprinters were dropped, allowing the escape to make it home before the pack.
The 32-year-old Herrada was overwhelmed with joy that soon gave way to tears as he sat on the floor sobbing and was eventually helped away by his team unable to speak.
When he reappeared from his bus, Herrada said he was still pinching himself over his win.
“It’s just wild, about 13km out they told us the peloton were catching us,” he said.
“We knew coming to the line it was going to be tough, I just built up my speed and then maintained it and that paid off. I can hardly believe it,” he said.
He claimed a second win for Spain on this Vuelta after UAE’s Marc Soler won stage five.
Evenepoel survived a mechanical problem with a wheel but goes into the weekend 21sec ahead of Rudi Molard and 28sec ahead of Enric Mas.
“My immediate objective is to hold on to the lead over the weekend. It would be wonderful to get to Tuesday’s time-trial with a lead,” said Evenepoel, who on paper should punish his rivals in the individual effort.
“But there’ll be a major fight starting from tomorrow.”
Big guns such as defending champion Primoz Roglic (1min 01sec) and Ineos Rider Tao Geoghegan Hart (1min 27sec) are within touching distance of the 22-year-old Belgian.
Victor Langellotti (Burgos-BH) retained the king of the mountains polka dot jersey while Ireland’s Sam Bennett (Bora-Hansgrohe) keeps the sprint jersey.
Two riders pulled out with Covid overnight as Andrea Vendrame and Jaakko Hanninen of AG2R fell ill with further testing pending on Monday’s rest day.
That will be followed by a long individual time-trial where Evenepoel, on paper at least, should punish his rivals again before the Vuelta swoops into the south.
Saturday’s mountain stage ends with a testing 10km climb at average 8.5 percent, while Sunday’s stage takes in a coastal run before a finale which is perhaps more fearsome with a short 4km effort but at 12 percent.