La Vuelta a Espana 2020 Stage 2 as it happened

1. Marc Soler (Movistar)
2. Primoz Roglic (Jumbo Visma)
3. Dan Martin (Israel StartUpNation)
4. Richard Carapaz (Ineos)
5. Alejandro Valverde (Movistar)

What a show from the man from Catalunya.

In second it looked like Roglic followed by Dan Martin. They'll both grab bonus seconds.

He's absolutely battered it. The team management will be delighted with this. Can Valverde take the sprint for second and make it a Movistar double?

The Jumbo Visma domestique is battling hard but he can't narrow the gap fast enough. It's 20 seconds to Soler now.

The rangy Brit is just struggling a little bit to keep in contact on this furious run-in.

Sorry, one so rarely gets to use that gag.

The Catalan is building his gap. It's 16 seconds now.

Marc Soler has attacked down the descent and opened up a healthy little lead on the maillot rojo group.

Bennett catches the GC group after being distanced and goes right over the top of them.

Tactics? We don't need no stinking tactics.

The GC group now is Chaves, Carapaz, Kuss, Hugh Carthy, George Bennett, Valverde, Roglic, Dan Martin and Enric Mas. Soler has 13 seconds on them. That means an armchair ride for Valverde and Mas.

The Eagle of Durango launches an attack in a bid to claim max points in the king of the mountains competition he currently leads. He's brought back by Carapaz, of all people, who is still looking very sprightly.

And then Carapaz launches another attack a few moments later.

Infuriatingly, the TV pictures cut away as the GC group went over the top, so I have no idea who won the 10 points for first over the crest, or if Kuss scored enough to secure his lead.

It's not going to be the young Russian's race. At least not in a GC sense.

I'm surprised to see Grosschartner also losing ground.

The Movistar train has just caught Luis Leon Sanchez, still 2km to the top.

The Spanish national champion has attacked and he has managed to open up a small gap of 22 seconds. He's no threat on GC, as Movistar continue to set the pace in the peloton.

It's a real show of strength from the Spanish team, who still have Marc Soler and Valverde with Mas.

All the leading GC riders are there, Hugh Carthy, Felix Grosschartner, Carapaz, Dan Martin, Esteban Chaves and of course Roglic.

Enric Mas, who all this effort has been for, is also in the bunch.

Now we find out if Carapaz will pay for that effort. Gosh I hope not.

Movistar lead the elite selection as they take on the lower slopes of the Alto de San Miguel. Eight km at 8% remaining.

Why did they attack? Can they stay away? How good are Carapaz' legs? 'I don't know' is the answer to all three.

Carapaz has burned Amador and now he's attacking under his own steam, he's only 20m ahead of the peloton but he's making everyone behind him hurt.

They've caught and overhauled Armirail, so Carapaz is the leader on the road.

Amid all that excitement in the peloton I forgot to tell you that Bruno Armirail has attacked from the last remnants of the breakaway in an attempt to do what Wellens could not.

Between him and the peloton is a very punchy move containing Richard Carapaz & Andrey Amador (Ineos) plus Alex Arunburu from Astana. Audacious stuff from the man in second place on GC!

The Spanish team, racing on what are really their home roads, are giving it everything as they look to maximise the damage done by these splits. Their main GC man is Enric Mas, current white jersey.

Former Vuelta champ Chris Froome is another one struggling to hack the pace. The peloton looks to have been winnowed down to about 80 riders now.

Not good news for Guillaume Martin. A split appeared in the bunch caused by a little bit of wind and the forcing at the front by Movistar, and the Frenchman from Cofidis is caught on the other side.

Wellens, all of a sudden, appears to have thrown in the towel too.

The forcing from the peloton has cleaved his lead in two and he now seems to think the solo stage win is out of reach. Will he wait for the other four riders that had been in the break with him and go again? Let's see.

30km for the mighty man from Sint-Truden in Flanders until the summit of the day's last climb. If he can make it that far he'll win the KOM jersey for tonight.

Unfortunately for Tim, there's a nine-kilometre climb at 8% to contend with first.

For a few brief moments it seemed like the peloton had forgotten all about Ole Timmy Wellens, but Movistar for some reason have now kicked it up a gear.

Why? No idea. Maybe crosswind? But also... the race is going through a forest? Sometimes I think the teams just put in a spurt of frantic activity to mess with each other.

Wellens now has 4'44" on the peloton, the other fugadores are 90 second further back up the road.

Tim Wellens is doing a Thomas De Gendt!

With 7.6km remaining of the second climb of the day, Timmy Wellens has chinned off the other four members of the break and is forging on alone. He was four minutes of lead on the peloton and about 20 seconds on his erstwhile partners in crime, which should be enough to get him over the first climb he has to contend with, but then he'll have another 47km solo before the summit of the cat 1 Alto de San Miguel.

You would certainly call this a 'lull' in proceedings as we hit the halfway mark on the stage.

Yesterday's victor, Primoz Roglic on today's finale.

There are five of them there: Alex Aranburu (Astana), Bruno Armirail (Groupama-FDJ), Jonathan Hivert (Total-Direct Energie), Tim Wellens (Lotto Soudal) & Gonzalo Serrano (Caja Rural-Seguros RGA)

They have four minutes.

A joyous moment at the Driedaagse De Panne when Michal Kwiatkowski gave Caleb Ewan a lift to the start. And to wherever the Aussie sprinter has left his bike, presumably.

And just for good measure, here's your man Mark Cavendish getting startled by a starter's pistol.

Over the first climb it's the Belgian Lotto Soudal rider who gets the max points, with van den Berg second. Wellens attacked and left everyone in his dust. He might have designs on taking the blue polkadots to Madrid, given his penchant for getting in breakaways.

There have also been a lot of changes in the break, with the peloton keeping them on a very short leash and that allowing riders to bridge across.

Wellens is now with Bruno Armirail, Jonathan Hivert and Alex Aranburu.

If the start of La Vuelta took you by surprise and you missed day 1 – and I wouldn't blame you – here's a recap of that masterful display from Señor Roglic himself.

They've lost three of their eight riders now, with the abandon today of Axel Domont. Yesterday they lost Mathias Frank and Alexandre Geniez – so you have to think there's some sort of bug going around that team.

The break is getting close to the summit of the first climb of the day, the Alto de Guirguillano. It's a Cat 3, with 3, 2 and 1 points on offer. None of the guys in the break have any mountains points at this moment in time, but they could seize the lead of the classification if they score maximum on all three mountains today.

A very short stage today with fireworks expected so let's get in a quick plug while the going is good.

Lunsar Cycling Team are a Sierra Leonean cycling team with aims of competing internationally. They are currently fundraising for bikes on which to do so, the first step towards allowing Sierra Leonean cyclists to flourish in races at home and abroad – and who knows, maybe one day compete at La Vuelta.

You can find out a bit more about their story here, and donate to the cause should you wish to.

Juan Felipe Osorio of Burgos BH has got himself a little bit of a gap and Tim Wellens, Julius van den Berg and Julen Amezqueta are chasing behind in the gap.

Furious competition for the break, but nothing has stuck yet. Second-placed in the KOM jersey, Quentin Jauregui, is understandably anxious to make the move. Pim Lighthart is also getting stuck in.

As the peloton trundles along in the neutral zone, let's hear from Harry Tanfield, that rarest of things, a British rider plying his trade on a French race team. Good to hear that safety is being observed and that 'Our Harry' is getting on with his French lessons.

After one stage, there's not much spread in terms of the various leaders' jerseys. Primoz Roglic has the red for overall leader and the green points jersey is also his by rights. It'll be worn today by Richard Carapaz of Ineos. Roglic's Jumbo Visma teammate Sepp Kuss has the blue polkadots of the best climber in the race, while Enric Mas is somewhat improbably still youthful enough to wear the white jersey off the best young rider.

Mas seems to have been plugging away at GC in Grand Tours for at least six years, but a quick check of his Wikipedia page does indeed confirm that he is only 25.

And welcome to the second stage of La Vuelta. Yesterday's opener was an absolute ripsnorter, and by the looks of things today is going to be no different.

We've a bumpy course of 151 kilometres, with a couple of warmup climbs, then a big Navarran monster in the form of the Alto de San Miguel to the northwest of Pamplona. From the summit it's a breakneck descent to the finish at Lekunberri.

We might see some fierce competition for the breakaway when the stage gets underway in about ten minutes..

*But particularly to Andy Burnham.

Chris Froome lost over 11 minutes on the opening day of La Vuelta as any lingering hopes that he could contend for General Classification honours were dashed. Froome has struggled to regain full fitness and form after his crash in 2019, and will not compete for the Vuelta title in his last appearance for Ineos.

And Sean Kelly said he was expecting more of Froome, even if the 35-year-old is still on the way back from his 2019 injuries.

“I was very surprised,” Kelly said. “I thought he would be able to hang in the group but we could see he was fighting big-time to try and stay in the group. That shows he’s still a long way off. It doesn’t look like he’s going to be anywhere in the general classification and today has given us that answer."

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