Wout van Aert wins seventh stage of Vuelta, Ben O’Connor remains in red | Vuelta a España

Wout van Aert took his second stage win in this edition of the Vuelta a España on Friday, while Ben O’Connor retained the lead in the general classification.

Van Aert added to his victory in the third stage with another dominant performance to win the seventh stage. The Belgian rider sprinted to victory in four hours and 15 minutes. Mathias Vacek (Lidl-Trek) was second, with Spaniard Pau Miquel Delgado (Kern Pharma) third.

The 180.5km stage from Archidona to Córdoba featured one categorised climb, the Alto del 14%, towards the end of the stage, but with 26km to go to the finish and a flat stage after the descent, a bunch sprint was the expected outcome.

However, Red Bull and Primoz Roglic’s pace on the climb split the race, with a lead group of 33 riders still battling for the stage win. Australian Kaden Groves, winner of the second stage, crashed as he tried to catch up with the leaders, taking one of Van Aert’s biggest rivals out of the final sprint.

Marc Soler (UAE Team Emirates) tried to get away on the descent, and it was Van Aert who gave chase, but he let his teammate and reigning champion, Sepp Kuss, take over. Soler was caught, and although his teammate, Pavel Sivakov, tried to steal a lead, he was caught and when Van Aert came to the front just before the finish line, the winner was never in doubt.

“I expected a much bigger group to go to the finish. I knew the climb on the circuit was tough, but I didn’t expect the race to explode like that,” Van Aert said. “Sepp did such a great job, I don’t think people know what it’s like when you’re under 60kg and you do those kind of pulls on the flat.”

“We always had this stage in mind for Wout, but we knew it was going to be tough, especially with the pace on the last climb,” Kuss said. “The pace was high, but when I saw Wout there I knew he was on a good day. It was a ‘suffer fest’ to pull Soler back, but it feels like a win for me too.”

Roglic, the pre-race favourite, managed to take just six seconds off O’Connor’s lead, taking the bonus seconds when he was first up the climb. “I can’t really do much about Primoz sprinting for the bonuses, but you have to take a lot of bonuses to make up that amount of time,” said Australian O’Connor.

O’Connor (Decathlon-AG2R La Mondiale), who took the red jersey after winning stage 6 in dramatic fashion, still holds a lead of 4min 45sec over three-time former champion Primoz Roglic (Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe).

Saturday’s eighth stage is a hilly 159km ride from Ubeda to Cazorla. Sunday will see a mountain stage from Motril to Granada before the first rest day as the race heads to northern Spain.