Visma-Lease a Bike could hardly have had more mixed feelings after stage 2 of the Vuelta a España as Wout van Aert secured the overall lead, but the squad simultaneously had to regret Dylan van Baarle becoming the first rider of the race to abandon.
Van Baarle had barely crossed the line on Saturday in Lisbon, finishing just two seconds behind winner Brandon McNulty (UAE Team Emirates), before he declared that there was “everything to play for” in the battle for the overall lead.
The Belgian duly pushed hard for the bonus seconds both in the intermediate sprint and on the rugged stage 2 finale. While he just missed out on the seconds on offer at Acobaca with 50 kilometres to go, Van Aert finally got the bonus he needed at the finish in Ourém, where he took second place behind Kaden Groves (Deceuninck-Alpecin).
The six seconds Van Aert took there were more than enough to move Van Aert past Brandon McNulty and into red for his second Grand Tour lead after a four day spell in the Tour de France first week in 2021.
“Of course I wanted to win this stage, my team did a really good job to fight for a bunch sprint, so it’s unfortunate that I got second. But today I knew that finishing in the first three meant the red jersey, so after all it's a good day,” Van Aert said.
Riding his first ever Vuelta, Van Aert was adamant that he would not swap the leader’s jersey for a stage win. “This week was my best chance to take the red, and there are lots of opportunities further on for stages. I’ve already tried twice for a stage here in two days, and I will try again,” he said. “It was a career goal of mine to get the Vuelta lead, and I’m very proud to be wearing it.”
The sprint itself was anything but straightforward, with a late crash all but splintering the peloton on the technical, twisting finish. Van Aert came close to success, but Groves proved the quickest. “I knew beforehand that Kaden is really fast,” Van Aert said. “Edoardo Affini gave me a really good lead out, but Kaden came past me at speed and he fully deserves the win.”
Van Aert did not rule out trying to go for a stage win as soon as Monday in Castelo Branco, almost equally as rugged a finish as on Sunday. But after winning the points classification in the Tour a few years back, he is also pushing for the maillot a puntos in the Vuelta. Although Groves is currently ahead in that competition by seven points, Van Aert is close behind.
Van Aert said he had few expectations that he would be able to keep the race leader’s red jersey, however, beyond stage 4’s first summit finish of the race, at Pico Villuercas.
Van Baarle
Even as Van Aert and Visma-Lease a Bike were celebrating, though, they were keeping more than half an eye on updates regarding Dylan van Baarle, who crashed mid-way through the stage with what race doctors called ‘multiple traumatism’ and had to abandon with 49 kilometres to go.
Van Baarle’s latest DNF compounds an already very difficult year for the former Dutch national champion. He was unable to race the Tour de France after he abandoned injured in a bad crash in the Criterium du Dauphiné, and before that he could not take part in Paris-Roubaix, which he won in 2022, because of sickness.
Part of Kuss’ winning Vuelta team last year, Van Baarle was expected to play a key support role again for the American in 2024, as well as working in the lead-outs for Van Aert.
“It’s a big blow to start the Vuelta with,” Affini told reporters at the finish line. “Dylan is an exceptional rider and we will miss him for sure.”
Affini was confident that Kuss would be able to perform at his best without Van Baarle’s support. “When it comes to the climbs it’s up to Sepp. At that moment it’s his legs that will do the talking. But during the whole race, and tactics-wise, it’s going to be something we have to think about.”
Speaking before the start of the stage, Kuss described his opening time trial as “more or less what he expected,” although he admitted that he had struggled a little against the strongly gusting crosswinds. Kuss finished 63rd at 53 seconds on stage 1, 37 seconds down on key reference point Primoz Roglic (Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe) – not a massive gap, but perhaps more than he would like.
“I think it was a little bit less straightforward than I expected, with the wind, it was kind of hard to keep the bike going, but the feeling was ok for the first day of a Grand Tour and power and everything was good. So it was a decent enough start," Kuss said.
The race in any case has no clear patron as yet – it is far too soon for that – and, as Kuss pointed out, the level of the field was a very deep one. “Almost every team has two or three options, and that makes it even more open,” he said.
“We’ll see a bit more who is where in the next mountain stages, and definitely we'll know more by the end of the first week. Bora, UAE, Trek – there are so many strong teams, it’s the last Grand Tour of the season, too. So everybody put all their eggs in one basket and that makes it even tougher.”
Although Kuss has lost Van Baarle as team support, Van Aert made it clear that for all he has his own targets in the Vuelta, one of his top priorities is ensuring the American is in a position to defend the overall title he won in 2023.
“My main goals from now on, in any case, are to collect points for green, win a stage and be as much support as I can for Sepp,” Van Aert said.
“We’re confident that he can do it [win overall] again, but we’ll have to see. It’s way too early to say much about that. Stage 4 will be where we’ll start seeing the differences between the GC guys.”
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