Key Takeaways: Vuelta a España Stage 5

Breaking down how a previously dropped rider came back for an impressive stage win on a vintage Vuelta transition stage

Marc Soler won a vintage Vuelta transition stage through the Basque Country using a mix of talent and race-reading ability in fantastic solo fashion ahead of Daryl Impey and Fred Wright in the chase group behind. Soler held a razor-thin lead ahead of a strong group on a descent slicing through the streets of Bilbao after attacking and getting clear on the day’s final climb. While he might not have been the strongest rider in the group, he read the complex situation perfectly and leveraged it to his advantage to take his first win of the 2022 season.

After an incredibly hard start to the stage, the Jumbo-Visma-led GC group eventually took their foot off the pedal after the breakaway was established in an effort to ‘gift’ the race lead to a rider from the front group. This tactic would allow them to relieve themselves of the stress and duty of leadership in the coming stages. With every other main contender content to ride a steady tempo to the finish line to save their legs for the difficult days ahead, four riders from the breakaway were able to leapfrog Primož Roglič in the GC, with FDJ’s Rudy Molard coming out on top and getting a career-defining leadership stint in a grand tour.

Stage Top 3:
1) Marc Soler +0
2) Daryl Impey +4
3) Fred Wright +4

Overall Top 5:
1) Rudy Molard +0
2) Fred Wright +2
3) Nikias Arndt +1’09
4) Lawson Craddock +2’27
5) Primož Roglič +4’09

Stage 5 Notebook:

86.8km: After a brutal pace in the opening hour of racing (not televised), a breakaway finally gets clear. Marc Soler misses the move initially but waits until a mid-stage climb to impressively bridges a gap of two minutes by himself. This indicates that he is on great form, but as we see him amble up to the tail-end of the group, it seems that he has already burned the matches he’d need to win the stage.

67.4km: Back in the peloton, Jumbo is on the front of the peloton and has let the gap to the break go out to over four minutes. With multiple strong riders in the break who could take, and most importantly, hold, the leader’s jerseys for a few stages, they are clearly happy to let this move stay clear and ride a steady pace for the rest of the day.

23.2km: Heading into the final climb, FDJ’s Jake Stewart attacks to build a buffer that could allow him to get up and over the climb with the better climbers behind, and to allow his teammate Rudy Mollard to sit on Fred Wright’s wheel. This is significant since Mollard is four seconds ahead of Wright in the GC and set to take the leader’s jersey as long as Wright doens’t win the stage or drop Mollard.

17.6km: When they hit the lower slopes of the climb, we see Soler is dropped from the bunch, which makes it seem as though his bridge effort has taken a toll.

16.4km: Stewart fights up front to hold off the chasers. His 30-second gap gives him a chance to get over the summit ahead of the chasers, especially if the relatively large group starts to look at each other and refuses to work.

16.3km: Soler, coming back from the dead, both catches and attacks the chasers, who are indeed looking at each other and worried about pulling a rival up the climb.

15.4km: Soler closes the 30-second gap to Stewart in just a kilometer of climbing. Soler flies past Stewart to keep him from getting on his wheel and ensure that he gets over the climb ahead of the peloton.

14.2km: Soler crests the climb alone at the front, and while his gap is small at 11-seconds, the complex situation behind means as long as he is at least a meter clear, he has a chance.

5.6km: Over the next 10km, the chasers have the gap down to 9-seconds, but we can see that even as Mollard pulls through, he is keeping an eye on Wright behind.

5km: However, the small group appears to have Soler, who is dangling just a few meters in front, caught, but a small group containing a few extremely fast riders make contact, which means it will be extremely hard to motivate anyone to set pace to reel in Soler.

2.6km: The two groups have the gap down to a tantalizingly close 7-seconds, but with no real cooperation, the only option is for a super confident fast finisher like Nikias Arndt to take control to pull things back or for a single rider to bridge across. A small group ties, but we can see that while riders are more than comfortable to freewheel to avoid doing work, everyone springs into gear to reel in an attempted bridge. This dynamic gives a massive advantage to Soler, even with a small gap.

900m: As they go under the final km banner, the chase group is ri

ght on top of Soler, but without a teammate to sacrifice themselves to close down the final few meters, it will be all but impossible to catch Soler.

200m: We see that as they come into the final few hundred meters, the group is within touching distance of Soler but the pace has died as Wright shifts his focus to winning the sprint for second place (which he must believe will give him the leader’s jersey but actually will not due to Molard taking 2 bonus seconds at the top of the last climb.

Finish: Soler coasts over the finish line for his second career Vuelta stage win while Fred Wright gets four bonus seconds after finishing in 3rd place behind Daryl Impey in the sprint.

Key Takeaways: