Brenner wins Vuelta mountain stage, Mas goes further into red: this is how the Vuelta stage to Sierra de la Pandera unfolded

Marco Brenner (Tudor) won the fourteenth stage of the Vuelta a España on the Sierra de la Pandera. The German was the best of the breakaway group. Enric Mas (Movistar) strengthened his lead in the general classification.

There are a few obstacles to overcome along the way, but in the end, it all comes down to the final climb of this fourteenth stage. The first few kilometers climb at a relatively steady rate, but when the riders turn right toward La Pandera with 8.4 kilometers to go, the conditions change. That final section averages a gradient of nearly 8 percent and includes a kilometer with a gradient of about 17 percent.

From the start, the race took place in Spain. Over the past few days, there had already been several successful breakaways, which fueled optimism among the attackers as they flew through the olive groves. These groups varied in size: it didn’t get as large as Friday’s breakaway of 45 riders, but we still saw groups of 24 and 16 pass by.

The first real serious attempt came from a group of a dozen riders, consisting of Kevin Vermaerke (UAE Emirates XRG), Raul Garcia Pierna (Movistar), Steven Kruijswijk, Jorgen Nordhagen (Visma-Lease a Bike), David De La Cruz (Pinarello Q36.5), Alberto Dainese (Soudal Quick-Step), Jasha Sütterlin (Jayco AlUla), Georg Steinhauser (EF Education-EasyPost), Lorenzo Fortunato, Alessandro Romele (XDS Astana), Sinuhé Fernandez (Burgos Burpellet BH), and Reuben Thompson (Lotto Intermarché).

They, too, were caught again, after which the peloton even split into several groups due to the high pace. The first group consisted of just 45 riders, which later turned out to be the breakaway of the day after all.

The full lineup: Almeida, Oliveira, Vermaeke (UAE Emirates XRG), Castrillo, García Pierna (Movistar), Kruijswijk, Nordhagen (Visma-Lease a Bike), Chamberlain (Decathlon CMA CGM), De La Cruz, Azparren, Calzoni, Vader (Pinarello-Q36.5), Svestad-Bardseng (Netcompany Ineos), Bilbao, Buitrago (Bahrain Victorious), Bernard, Konrad (Lidl-Trek), Berthet, Martin-Guyonnet (Groupama-FDJ United), Marti (NSN).

Also: Dainese, Paret-Peintre, Zana (Soudal Quick-Step), Ourselin (Cofidis), Bouwman, Hellemose, Pickering, Sutterlin (Jayco AlUla), Albanese, Rafferty, Steinhauser (EF Education-EasyPost), Brenner, Barta, Warbasse (Tudor), Fortunato, Rodriguez, Romele (XDS Astana), Fernandez, Diaz, Aparicio, Alleno (Burgos-Burpellet-BH), Thompson (Lotto Intermarché), Martinez (Picnic PostNL), and Sosa (Kern Pharma).

With 50 kilometers to go, the race came down to a breakaway led by Vermaeke. Meanwhile, the peloton was already 8 minutes behind, which worked in favor of Clément Berthet (Groupama-FDJ United) and Cristian Rodriguez (XDS Astana): they were in 10th (+11'06) and 11th (+11'10) place in the general classification.

Meanwhile, there was a flurry of withdrawals due to the high temperatures in southern Spain. Jordan Labrosse (Decathlon), Hugo Houle (Alpecin-Premier Tech), Oliver Peace (Picnic PostNL), and Moritz Kretschky (NSN) all threw in the towel, as did Christophe Laporte of Visma | Lease a Bike, who suffered from stomach problems due to the heat. Temperatures in Spain have been exceeding 40 degrees these past few days.

At the foot of the final climb, Vermaerke’s adventure was over: Steinhauer and Martin overtook him. Other strong climbers such as Buitrago, Paret-Peintre and Zana were unable to stay behind and also made the break, meaning we were back to square one. Aparicio of Burgos took advantage of this and launched an attack at just the right moment.

Buitrago, together with Brenner, was the first to catch up with the Burgos-BH rider, after which the Colombian immediately pulled away with the German. Sosa and Rodriguez joined them shortly afterwards, but were then dropped again. Brenner proved the strongest in the sprint.

Among the general classification contenders, the first attack came from Carapaz. Gall, Roglic and Mas tried to follow his lead, after which the Austrian went over the top. Mas countered quite easily and that’s how it remained right up to the finish, where Roglic and Carapaz lost quite a bit of time compared to the other two.