That may be because there are not many opportunities for bunch sprints in this edition of the race, as there are almost 65,000m of altitude gain over the three weeks. And the two favorites for the points classification victory, Wout van Aert (Visma–Lease a Bike) and Kaden Groves (Alpecin-Deceuninck) are excellent sprinters and extremely competitive.
That was obvious from the very first bunch sprint, on stage 2, which was marked “hilly.” It helps that both Groves and van Aert are good climbers, with the advantage to the Belgian. Both made it over the bumps in the road, and Groves, who appears to be a wee bit faster, beat van Aert to the line, benefiting from van Aert’s slipstream as his own leadout riders experienced late problems.
It was his first victory in nearly a year, since he won the final stage of last year’s Vuelta, in which he also won the Škoda Green Jersey. “It’s a really nice way to start this Vuelta,” the 25-year-old Aussie said. “It’s been a hard year for myself, not having a win yet, but I came here super motivated to change that, and I’ve got to thank my team for a really strong ride today.” He said that the plan hadn’t been to follow van Aert, “but my two leadout men had problems with the bikes, so I actually missed them both in the final.”
But there was sweet consolation for van Aert, who temporarily took over the red jersey. He found more success on stage 3, when the 2022 Tour de France Škoda Green Jersey winner turned the tables on his rival by getting the jump on him in the finale and just managed to hang on for the win. That also ended a long win drought for van Aert as it was his first victory since February, in the second-level Kuurne-Brussel-Kuurne. A month later, he crashed in the Dwars door Vlaanderen and it has taken him all these months to return to form.
A funny thing happened on stage 5, the one designated as “flat”: neither Groves nor van Aert won the sprint. They were ambushed by the 21-year-old Czech Pavel Bittner, who benefited from an uncharacteristic error by van Aert, who threw his bike at the line too early, apparently confused by “shadows.” Groves finished third.
“It’s unbelievable,” the delighted winner said after registering his first Grand Tour stage win in his first Grand Tour appearance. “A couple of days ago I got my first pro win, so to get the win at my first Vuelta, I still don’t believe it.” Less than two weeks earlier, Bittner had won two stages and the green jersey at the Vuelta a Burgos.
Since van Aert beat Groves to the line, he extended his lead in the green jersey race to a mere 13 points.
The dramatic events on stage 7 may yet play a big part in determining the final green jersey winner. First, Groves crashed as he was cresting the summit of the stage’s only climb, the Alto del 14% (7.4km @ 5.6%, with a ramp of 14%, of course). He had already lost ground to van Aert when he fell off his bike while riding on his own, and he never got closer to his rival than 1:17, the gap at the finish.
As Groves was desperately racing to catch up, van Aert’s teammate Sepp Kuss, the defending Vuelta champion, took matters into his own hands. Riding hard at the head of the peloton, he caught the lone breakaway rider, Marc Soler (UAE Team Emirates) and then dragged van Aert into position to take his second stage win of the race. Afterwards, van Aert was effusive in his praise of his selfless teammate.
“He’s a legend, isn’t he?” he said. “People at home don’t realize what it’s like for a person like Sepp to pull a 50k per hour in the flat. It’s actually burning everything he has in his legs, and doing that for me to bring it to a sprint is so amazing. I already had goosebumps in [his] wheels.”
And Kuss was justifiably proud of his effort, saying: “It was a suffer-fest to bring Soler back, but it feels like a victory for me too.”
As a result, van Aert currently leads the points classification by 203 points to 162 for Groves. Bittner sits a distant third, with 81. With few chances for a bunch sprint finish in the remaining two weeks, as the only stages not designated as “mountain” or “medium mountain” have summit finishes, Groves will have to count on the intermediate sprints to catch van Aert. So the race for the green jersey is not quite over yet.
