Jonas Vingegaard has won the brutally steep summit finish of stage 3 of the 2023 Itzulia Basque Country and is the new race leader.
The 2022 Tour de France winner broke away in the last metres of the finale from Errenteria to Amasa-Villabona to claim the victory by two seconds over Mikel Landa (Bahrain Victorious) and Enric Mas (Movistar Team).
Vingegaard’s success is his first since he won the overall and three stages of O Gran Camino back in February.
After an attack by Juan Pedro Lopez (Trek-Segafredo), James Knox (Soudal-QuickStep) and Esteban Chaves (EF Education-Easy Post) were reeled in, Vingegaard made his move with less than 100 metres to go to claim the win.
López’s sudden veering to the right on a narrow ultra-steep final segment of the climb, when the riders were all almost at a standstill, left several of Vingegaard’s opponents, most notably Sergio Higuita (Bora-Hansgrohe) and Richard Carapaz (EF Education-EasyPost) briefly blocked.
But Vingegaard was already pounding up the final 26% pitch as if it were barely there, claiming both the race lead and the stage win in a timely bounceback after his Paris-Nice defeat by Tadej Pogačar.
"I'm very happy to take the win today, to pay back the hard work that my teammates did, this is one of my favourite races,” Vingegaard, who now leads by five seconds on Landa and 16 on David Gaudu (Groupama-FDJ) said afterwards.
"I'll take it day by day for now, but hopefully, I can stay in the jersey, and I'll fight with everything I can. Even if I lose the jersey, I'll keep fighting."
How it unfolded
An early move as the race headed through the beautiful coastal city of San Sebastian allowed Simon Geschke (Cofidis), Georg Zimmerman (Intermarché-Circus-Wanty) and Pierre Latour (TotalEnergies) to go clear, and after a furious first hour of racing, they were joined by Remi Cavagna (Soudal-QuickStep) and then Nicolas Prodhomme (AG2R-Citroen) and Thibault Guernalec (Arkea-Samsic).
For almost 100 kilometres, the six held onto a two-minute lead, but the fact that none of the GC teams wanted to allow them to gain any more time was indicative that this was a day for the overall leaders, not a breakaway. Things began to come to a head on the brutally steep first half of the Alkiza, the third of six categorized climbs where Latour, Cavagna and Zimmerman pushed on and opened up a gap, but the three others from the early break - Prodhomme, Guernalec and Geschke - were quickly swept up.
Latour then gave up the ghost as Jayco-AIUIa briefly lent a hand to the Jumbo-Visma led the chase, and an acceleration by EF Education-EasyPost on the narrow, long descent of the Orendain climb suddenly strung out the peloton, reducing the gap to barely 20 seconds and then sucking in the remainder of the move.
On the first of four final unclassified climbs with around 16 kilometres to go, a sudden lunge by Bauke Mollema (Trek-Segafredo) out of the pack was followed by Esteban Chaves (EF Education-Easy Post) and young Intermarché-Circus-Wanty rider Laurens Huys.
Chaves proved strong enough to solo clear, and as Jumbo-Visma continued to drive behind, he was joined by James Knox (Soudal-QuickStep) and former Giro d’Italia leader Juan Pedro Lopez (Trek-Segafredo).
After leading for nearly 10 kilometres, Chaves could not handle the pace on the final climb and was swept up by the Jumbo-led peloton. Knox finally crumbled, but López dug deep for a final drive clear in the last part of the ascent.
Jumbo-Visma were having none of it, though, and Attila-Valter guided Vingegaard into perfect position for a last drive up the climb. As they came past López, by then almost at a standstill as he ran out of gas, got entangled with Higuita and then Carapaz, forcing them both to a standstill. But Vingegaard was well en route to his first WorldTour win of the 2023 season, and the lead
Results
Results powered by FirstCycling
