La Vuelta 2022: Thymen Arensman wins maiden Grand Tour stage as Primoz Roglic gains more time on Remco Evenepoel

Thymen Arensman (Team DSM) won his first-ever Grand Tour stage as Primoz Roglic (Jumbo-Visma) trimmed Remco Evenepoel’s (Quick-Step Alpha Vinyl) lead in the general classification to 1’34” going into the final week of La Vuelta.

Arensman was part of a big breakaway that took a while to form and made his move inside the final 8km, catching and going past Marc Soler (UAE Team Emirates) to go on and win his maiden Grand Tour stage.

The battle for the red jersey didn’t light up until the final climb of the day, the special category ramp up to Alto Hoya de la Mora. The enormous gaps that some predicted failed to materialise, with Enric Mas (Movistar) only able to make modest inroads into Primoz Roglic's advantage over him. For his part, the Jumbo Visma rider left it late to attack, and could only take 15 seconds from Remco Evenepoel's lead.

The Queen Stage of this year’s Vuelta began as another on which the final summit was to be the centrepiece. The sheer length of the Alto Hoya de la Mora put any breakaway at a disadvantage, while its altitude - the only climb of this year’s race to go over 2000m - meant it favoured (mostly South American) riders born at similar heights above sea level.

The battle for the break, which began at the fall of the flag, was no less hard-fought for its limited chances of success.

The first to achieve a gap of any significance began as a small group, made up of Vincenzo Nibali (Astana Qazaqstan), Hugh Carthy (EF Education-EasyPost), Carl Fredrik Hagen (Israel Premier Tech), Vojtech Repa (Kern Pharma), Luis Angel Mate (Euskaltel-Euskadi) and Rohan Dennis (Jumbo-Visma) but the pace was too hot for Hagen and the ProContinental riders, who were dropped early on.

That was far from the end of it, and shots continued to be fired from the peloton, as Quick Step struggled to keep a lid on things.

After 20km of racing, another small group broke free and ballooned into a much larger one, before catching and becoming one with the three Vuelta veterans. Only when the fast, flat road narrowed were Quick Step able to impose any kind of barrage. The handful of seconds' advantage held by the break quickly grew to three minutes.

Though too big to be wholly cooperative, the group contained enough disparate interests to work together well enough: Fred Wright (Bahrain Victorious) and Mads Pederson (Trek-Segafredo) were after green jersey points; Jay Vine (Alpecin Deceuninck) was keen to enhance his lead in the mountains competition; Jumbo Visma and Quick Step had riders there to be useful to their leaders late on; several, such as Louis Meintjes, saw an opportunity to lift themselves up the GC ladder; most of the rest hung their hopes on the stage win.

As the gap was allowed to grow, Vine was indeed able to claim the maximum points on offer over the category 3 Puerto del Castillo climb.

Past the 100km to go mark the lead seemed to have settled at around five minutes and looked unlikely to go much higher.

Halfway through the 153km stage, Lawson Craddock (BikeExchange) appeared to have grown frustrated with the lack of impetus in the front group, broke out on his own and within 10km had added more than a minute all by himself, showing how much more the breakaway could have managed if they’d worked a little harder, or better.

Craddock pushed onto the category 1 Alto del Purche, which arrived 45km from the finish line. The 9km, 7.5% average climb, offered opportunities and challenges, the former of which AG2R and Jumbo-Visma in particular were keen to take advantage of. Having increased the pace in the peloton on the run-up to the climb, such that the larger group of breakers were only 3 minutes to the good, both teams proceeded to make things as difficult as possible for those around them. The peloton began to significantly slim down.

For his part, Jay Vine picked the perfect moment to go off on the hunt for Craddock, catching then passing him right before the summit to secure the mountains jersey for another day, with 10 additional points.

Ahead of the final climb, Roglic summoned his riders in the break, Rohan Dennis and Sam Oomen, to return to help him. Evenepoel was happy to leave his own colleagues, Fasto Masnada and Louis Vermaeke, up the road for a little longer.

Onto the long final climb and the Dutch team, eager to isolate the red jersey as quickly as possible, made use of the extra firepower immediately. Soon the group of favourites was down to ten. Evenepoel had no support left, although one up the road, while Roglic had Chris Harper shelling riders down the mountain.

Wearing the white jersey, Juan Ayuso (UAE Team Emirates) struggled to stay in touch. As did Mikel Landa (Bahrain Victorious) and Carlos Rodriguez (Ineos Grenadiers).

Up the road, Craddock had fallen back through the remaining breakaway and been replaced in the lead by an in-form Marc Soler (UAE Team Emirates).

Evenepoel, having survived the steep early slopes, seemed only to be getting stronger and more confident, as the terrain increasingly suited his powerful engine. The Belgian led a group of five made up of Roglic, Mas, Angel Lopez, and Ben O’Connor. That soon became six as the race leader’s team-mate, Vervaeke, dropped back to assist.

Lopez attacked, with 10km to go, hoping for a repeat of the stage win he achieved on the same slopes in 2017. At six minutes down he was no threat to the race lead and Evenepoel was unconcerned and unwilling to chase. Enric Mas, however, saw a potential ally, and locked onto his former team-mate’s wheel.

The race for the stage was far from over. Thymen Arensman broke out of his small group with 8km of the stage remaining, soon sighting, catching, overhauling and distancing Marc Soler.

Even as Mas ate into his second place, Roglic seemed content to sit on the wheel of O’Connor as Remco’s legs did the lifting. It appeared he was waiting for the right moment to attack. But did he leave it too long?

Beyond 2000m, and into the final 5, then 3 kilometres, the gaps remained steady but relatively small.

Arensman made strong progress on his way to the stage win, which Lopez had left it too late for. Mas made up a mere 20 seconds on Roglic, less than he had lost to the Slovenian the previous day.

With little more than a kilometre to the summit Roglic did, eventually, decide to attack the red jersey. Across the line he had made up just fifteen more seconds on a stage where some had predicted minutes to be on offer.

Going into the final rest day, Remco Evenepoel remains in red. With a week left to race, he has been wounded but far from mortally so.

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