Key Takeaways: Vuelta a España Stage 10

Breaking down how a difficult stage was won & how it highlighted the greatness of one of the sport's true unicorns

Through the mountains of Galicia between Ponteareas and Baiona, Wout van Aert rode clear of five rider breakaway with Groupama-FDJ’s Quentin Pacher at the base of the final climb before easily outsprinting his companion to win his third stage win through the first ten stages of the 2024 Vuelta a España. Van Aert made the win, which came after an incredibly fast and furious opening hour of racing due to an intense fight for the breakaway, look like a foregone conclusion as he whittled down the move past at will, which suggested that he could be a threat to win even more stages through the rest of the Vuelta, and potentially even the World Road Race Championships in September.

Behind, the fight for the GC ended up as a stalemate, with no teams and riders willing to press race leader Ben O’Connor, as his Decathlon-AG2R was happy to set a controlled pace on the front of the peloton that allowed the breakaway to ride clear and soak up the bonus seconds on offer.

Stage Top Five
1) Wout van Aert (Visma-Lease a Bike) +0
2) Quentin Pacher (Groupama-FDJ) +3
3) Marc Soler (UAE Team Emirates) +2’01
4) William Junior Lecerf (Soudal Quick-Step) +2’01
5) Juri Hollmann (Alpecin-Deceuninck) +2’01

Green Jersey Top Three
1) Wout van Aert (Visma-Lease a Bike)-243pts
2) Kaden Groves (Alpecin-Deceuninck)-162pts
3) Pavel Bittner (dsm-firmenich PostNL)-81pts

Current GC Top Five
1) Ben O'Connor (Decathlon AG2R La Mondiale) +0
2) Primož Roglič (Red Bull-BORA-hansgrohe) +3’53
3) Richard Carapaz (EF Education-EasyPost) +4’32
4) Enric Mas (Movistar) +4’35
5) Mikel Landa (Soudal Quick-Step) +5’17

Stage 10 Race Notebook

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151km-to-go: Wout van Aert is incredibly active right from the start, attempting to rip clear even before the stage hits its first climb.

134.5km: After being reeled in by the strung-out peloton on the climb, UAE’s Marc Soler keeps trying to press the issue, with Van Aert in close pursuit behind.

132km: At the top of the climb, Van Aert is clear with William Junior Lecerf and Soler, with a small gap on the peloton.

111.2km-81.6km: After being joined by Juri Hollmann and Quentin Pacher, the Van Aert front group is able to pull the gap out from a few seconds to just over a minute, with Decathlon-AG2R, who would rather the stage win time bonuses go to the breakaway, finally able to control, and slow, the peloton.

43.6km: On a mid-stage climb, Primož Roglič’s Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe team comes to the front, which suggests an attack or significant pace-raising is imminent, but after a few minutes, and a brief radio convo, they fall back.

31.9km: Heading into the day’s intermediate sprint, which takes place right before the final climb, Van Aert is sitting at the back of the breakaway (the perfect place from which to launch an attack), while Soler is back at his team car.

31.7km: When we finally see Soler, he is back at the team car, thinking he is gaining an edge before the climb by holding his water bottle out for his team car’s driver to grab.

31.5km: Seeing the perfect opportunity to catch Soler out, Van Aert moves to the other side of the road and attacks. Soler doesn’t react, likely thinking Van Aert is just going for sprint points, so the lightest rider in the breakaway, Lecerf, who was on the front at the time, is tasked with attempting to match Van Aert’s massive power output.

31.1km: As Van Aert keeps his speed up as he rides through the sprint point, it is clear that this is an attempt to build up an advantage before the final climb. However, with Soler still back at his team car, and Lecerf and Hollmann not having the power to make up the difference, Van Aert is clear with only Quinten Pacher close enough to catch him.

30.9km: As Pacher pushes as hard as he possibly can to complete the bridge, Van Aert, wanting company to help him set the pace, continues tapping out what appears to be a comfortable pace, looking back at Pacher, almost as if to ask what is taking so long.

29.7km: Once Pacher is with Van Aert, it is clear he will be a welcome addition to the group as he wastes no time getting to work as soon as they hit the climb, hoping to extend their 18-second lead over the Soler chase group.

24.9km: Behind, when the GC group hits the climb, EF comes to the front, presumably to set up a potential Richard Carapaz attack (or just to test the legs of other GC contenders), but no moves materialize.

20.4km-12.6km: By the time Van Aert and Pacher reach the summit, they have extended their gap to the Soler chase group to 36 seconds, and, once on the descent, they extend it out to 1’09.

1.6km: On the run-in to the finish, with the chase group nearly two minutes back and the top two positions secure, Pacher attempts to attack Van Aert. However, he is quickly and easily shut down.

Finish: As soon as Van Aert opens up his sprint on the final straight, Pacher knows he can’t match him and simply sits up as the hulking Belgian rides to his third stage win of this Vuelta.

Three Key Takeaways

1) Wout van Aert Winning a Mountain Stage Win With Relative Ease Highlights His Unique Greatness: After winning just a single WorldTour race over the 17 months prior to this Vuelta, the Belgian superstar has now won three over just the last ten stages and has officially turned a corner at this Vuelta and left the most fallow period of his career behind. While his last two stage wins came from bunch, or reduced bunch, sprints, today’s came on a mountain stage featuring 3,074 meters (10,100 ft) of climbing over 160 kilometers, with the relative ease and clinicality that only the sport’s elite can do.

• The genius of Van Aert’s late attack is that it came close enough to the sprint point that it fooled key breakaway members into thinking it was simply for the points and that he would sit up, which meant they wouldn’t need to follow him.

  • Also, the downside was minimal since, to win the stage, Van Aert just needed to get to the top of the climb close to the leaders. So, even if they eventually reeled him in on the climb, they would have already used their superior climbing to get even with him, and, as such, likely wouldn’t have enough pace differential left to drop him, which would have still resulted in a Van Aert stage win.

• Van Aert’s three wins, and six podiums, through ten stages is an absurdly good record, but instead of satiating his appetite, I expect it to lift a weight off his shoulders, which will allow him to race even better than we’ve seen so far and see him rack up more wins between now and Madrid.

• In addition to the stage win, after racking up 40 points and extending his lead over Kaden Groves to 81 points, he likely sealed the Points (Green) Jersey Classification.

  • This performance, in which he looked like an adult professional competing against juniors on today’s stage, was truly impressive and showed that he should be the favorite for the World Road Race Championships (which will feature 4,300 meters over a 273-kilometer long course) in Zurich in late September.

    • Although the Worlds might technically feature more climbing, it will be spread out over a greater distance and not feature a single climb longer than 5 kilometers, which suits Van Aert far more than today’s course.

2) Marc Soler & UAE’s Short-Sighted Tactics Were Easily Exploited By a Rider of Van Aert’s Level: Soler’s effort and strength to get into and drive the early breakaway was impressive, but, at times, his penchant for gamesmanship almost appeared to be spiraling out of control, to the point where he missed an obvious and somewhat telegraphed move from Van Aert.

• UAE’s strategy was most likely centered around allowing Soler to save as much energy as possible before getting to the final climb, which, in theory, should have suited him over Van Aert. However, in reality, Van Aert was just as strong on the climbs, if not stronger, and the seasoned star easily exploited Soler’s plan to take mini-breaks by having his director in the team car hold onto his water bottle with his late attack.

  • The fact that Soler was attempting to outfox a rider of Van Aert's caliber with fairly amateur tactics and failed to recognize that allowing him to sprint clear uncontested before the final climb could result in him riding to a stage win raises significant questions about the wisdom of this tactic.

    • With Van Aert being so physically talented and experienced enough as a winner to already be fifth amongst active riders in Grand Tour stage wins, it seems incredibly ill-sighted of UAE and Soler to have attempted this instead of having Soler stick to Van Aert’s wheel before trying to outclimb him on the hardest part of the final climb.

3) The Lack of GC Action Is Yet Another Win for Ben O’Connor & Decathlon AG2R La Mondiale: Most of the attention will have been on Van Aert’s win from the breakaway, but back in the peloton, Ben O’Connor made it through another tough stage without losing any time. With a 3’53 lead on Primož Roglič and close to or more than five minutes on the rest of the field, every kilometer that ticks by without O’Connor losing time is a win for the race leader.

• When the teams of his GC rivals, like Red Bull-Bora-hansgrohe and EF-Education-Easy Post, came to the front to test O’Connor, he appeared alert and prepared to respond.

  • With seven difficult mountain stages remaining, it is possible this restraint will end up paying dividends, but if O’Connor does hold on to win this race, stages like today will be pointed at as massive missed opportunities.

Stage 11 Preview

Tomorrow’s stage serves up another up-and-down profile with four categorized climbs and, most importantly, a steep three-kilometer-long climb directly preceding the technical descent to the finish line.

• With four brutal mountain stages between the end of tomorrow’s stages and the next rest day, this is another great opportunity for the breakaway to get clear while the GC teams shadowbox and conserve energy behind.

  • However, if a breakaway ultimately contests the stage, look for the top GC contenders to test each other on the final climb.

• Prediction: Wout van Aert wins another stage after getting into the breakaway and staying close enough on the steep slopes of the final climb to catch back on before the finish line to outsprint his stage win rivals easily. Back in the GC group, Primož Roglič attacks and distances almost every other contender, but cannot shake Enric Mas and Ben O’Connor.