Jonas Vingegaard (Visma-Lease a Bike) notched up his first victory of 2024 on stage 2 of O Gran Camiño on a stormy day in Galica.
After enduring heavy rain for much of the stage, the Tour de France champion signalled his intent as he doffed his rain gear on the Alto de San Pedro de Líncora. When he went with 5km to go only Jefferson Cepeda (Caja Rural-Seguros RGA) and a resurgent Egan Bernal (Ineos Grenadiers) could follow.
Vingegaard left the two challengers behind before the summit with 3.4km to go and soloed on to the stage victory and race lead after the opening time trial was neutralised due to high wind.
Bernal out-paced Cepeda for second on the stage in another sign he is on his way to being back to his best. The pair came through 24 seconds behind Vingegaard, leaving Bernal in second overall at 28 seconds after the time bonuses and Cepeda third at 30 seconds.
"It was a very nice victory today. I'm very happy with the day and with the team. We did all the work today and the team did amazing and I want to thank all my teammates," Vingegaard said at the finish.
"Yeah, they really deserve to win today as well. So I'm happy I could pay a bit back and yeah in the end a good day for us - a cold day but we're happy. This is my fourth stage win in two years, so I'm very happy to take the win today and looking forward to the next coming days as well."
Vingegaard took the overall lead with a 28-second advantage over Bernal, and 30 seconds over Cepeda. Q36.5 rider Xabier Azparren took the points classification lead.
How it unfolded
After the opening time trial stage was partially neutralised because of rough weather, with only placings but not time gaps counting, all 118 riders that completed the stage 1 rolled out of the start village of Taboada shortly after 1 p.m. local time, with a heavy rain storm just as they were getting underway an unwelcome reminder of the tough conditions of the day before.
On a day with nearly 3,000 metres of vertical climbing and where the dauntingly steep and narrow category 2 ascent of San Pedro de Licora, tackled twice in the final kilometres, was always likely to decide the stage winner, there were few takers for an early break.
The first intermediate sprint of the day was snapped up by Ruben Guerreiro (Movistar) and for nearly an hour, only a quickly extinguished move of eight briefly interrupted the unspoken unofficial truce in the peloton.
On a winding descent off an unclassified climb with around 110 kilometres to go, 12 riders managed to establish a bridgehead: Jorge Arcas (Movistar), Sebastian Berwick (Caja Rural-Seguros RGS), Diego Uriarte (Kern Pharma), José Manuel Diaz (Burgos-BH), Enekoitz Azparren (Euskaltel-Euskadi), Xabier Azparren (Q36.5), Davie Bais and Andrea Pietrobon (Polti-Kometa), Alex Molenaar (Illes Balears-Arabay Cycling), Tiago Antunes (Efapel), Frederico Figueiredo (Sabgal) and Embret Svestad-Bardseng (Arkea-B&B Hotels).
Such a large group had few problems establishing a gap of just over 2:00 before Movistar then began establishing a watching brief at the front of the peloton and the umpteenth rain shower teemed down.
The holding pattern continued until well into the second half of the race, and with 50 kilometres left to race, the 12 continued to hold their advantage well. It was notable, however, that none of the five WorldTour teams present had riders in the break. When Movistar were joined by Visma-Lease A Bike at the front of the peloton, it began to look increasingly complicated for the move.
A lone attack by Xabier Azparren just before the first of the two ascents of the Alto de San Pedro de Licora left the front group divided, and as the sun began to shine for the first time in the stage, Visma-Lease A Bike began to shred the peloton and sweeping up stragglers from the break.
Molenaar then joined Azparren close to the summit and the two swept through the finish line with 1:05 advantage on the remnants of the Visma-led peloton, by now down to just 40 riders, with Carlos Rodriguez (Ineos Grenadiers) one notable name already five minutes down.
Shadowed by four other Ineos riders, Visma continued to force the pace behind on the rain-soaked backroads, as the heavens opened again.
Results
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