La Vuelta 2023 – Stage 09 [FULL STAGE]

September 3, 2023

La Vuelta 2023 🇪🇸 – Stage 9 – Cartagena – Collado de la Cruz de Caravaca : 184,5 km

As the final Grand Tour of the year, the Vuelta a España is seen by many as a last-chance saloon for those riders who have failed to hit their seasonal objectives. In reality, the race is much more than that, often surpassing the other two three-week races in terms of action and edge-of-your-seat entertainment. This is a race with the steepest summit finishes in professional cycling, the anything-can-happen transitional stages, the unlikeliest breakaway victories and the most fiercely fought GC battles seen anywhere on the racing calendar. Aside from a summit finish atop the Col du Tourmalet in France, this year’s route is very typical of La Vuelta, with mountainous stages in the Spanish Pyrenees and a return to the infamous Altu de l’Angliru. All eyes will be on Evenepoel as he attempts to retain his title and win a second Grand Tour, but it’s not going to be an easy ride for the Belgian prodigy. With the likes of Tour de France champion Jonas Vingegaard, Primož Roglič, Enric Mas and Geraint Thomas also set to start, we’re in for an amazing spectacle between the best riders on the planet.

Lennard Kämna (Bora-Hansgrohe) completed his set of Grand Tour stage wins on stage 9 of the Vuelta a España with a solo effort from the breakaway at the Collado de la Cruz de Caravaca.

The German proved the strongest from the day’s eight-man break on the tough final climb of the day, leaving behind Matteo Sobrero (Jayco-AlUla) and Chris Hamilton (dsm-firmenich) to add to his stage wins at the 2022 Giro d’Italia and 2020 Tour de France.

Meanwhile, back in the GC group, times were taken at 2.05km from the finish, meaning the toughest sections of the summit finish were neutralised at the end of a day which saw multiple echelon attacks in the crosswinds that blew across the 184.5km stage.

The early kilometres of the stage saw Jumbo-Visma tear up the race as the winds blew, leading to echelons scattered across the road for the first 50km. As things calmed down on the first climb of the day, the breakaway went clear, with Kämna part of the move which would stay away to the finish.

The wind struck again at 80km to go, with Jumbo-Visma and Soudal-QuickStep pushing the pace once more for another 30km before the split peloton came back together. From there, it was a calmer race to the final climb, where race organisers announced that the GC times would be taken at 2.05km from the line due to poor road conditions on the climb.

Up front, the racing kicked off on the lower slopes of the climb, with Kämna, Sobrero, and Chris Hamilton (dsm-firmenich) among those making moves. It was Kämna who made the winning move, however, going clear 5km out and soloing home for the win.

“I am very happy with this. I have worked very hard in recent months and am happy to be on the podium again and to win here,” Kämna said after the stage.

“I hoped to push on and have as much energy as possible for when everything came together again. At that moment I noticed that I still had power left.

“The climb was very tricky. It was always up and down and that made it difficult to get away. I had a gap and then I went full throttle. I tried to break it by going two minutes over my limit.

“I skipped the Tour de France because I wanted to win a stage here. We succeeded and that is why I’m very happy.”

Down the mountain, attacks came from João Almeida (UAE Team Emirates) and Aleksandr Vlasov (Bora-Hansgrohe), while Primož Roglič (Jumbo-Visma) pushed on before the GC timing line, too.

After some waiting, the GC times filtered through, with Almeida and Vlasov coming in at 3:11 down on Kämna and Roglič next at 3:16. He gained two seconds on a group containing Remco Evenepoel (Soudal-QuickStep), Juan Ayuso (UAE Team Emirates), Enric Mas (Movistar), and Jonas Vingegaard (Jumbo-Visma), while red jersey Sepp Kuss (Jumbo-Visma) came in at 3:25 down.

HOW IT UNFOLDED
Stage 9 of the Vuelta a España would bring with it another mountain test on the final day before the first rest day, with the summit finish of Collado de la Cruz de Caravaca giving the GC riders another chance to do battle.

The peloton rolled out of Cartagena to begin the 184.5km stage with Jumbo-Visma setting a high pace on the flat roads to start the day. It soon became clear just what they were up to in the windy early kilometres as splits appeared in the peloton inside the first 10km.

Soon enough, the entire Jumbo-Visma team – minus Robert Gesink – were out front, accompanied by Soudal-QuickStep duo Remco Evenepoel and Mattia Cattaneo, Bora-Hansgrohe trio Aleksandr Vlasov, Nico Denz, and Emanuel Buchmann, and Bahrain Victorious rider Matevz Govekar.

Further back groups were scattered across the road, with Movistar and Bahrain Victorious taking charge of the chase in the main peloton 20 seconds behind. Despite their efforts, though, the gap to the front kept growing as the kilometres ticked by.

The 50kph average of the first hour saw the lead group build an advantage of 45 seconds on the road to the day’s first climb, the Puerto Casas de Marina la Perdiz (11.5km at 4.9%), though with 140km still to run, the move was never likely to be a permanent one.

That was proven true on the climb, with the peloton catching back on midway up to briefly bring it all back together after 50km of echelon action. It wouldn’t be long before a more conventional breakaway made a move, though.

Six men – local rider Ruben Fernandez (Cofidis) plus Matteo Sobrero (Jayco-AlUla), Lennard Kämna (Bora-Hansgrohe), Amanuel Ghebreigzabhier (Lidl-Trek), Dani Navarro (Burgos-BH), Jon Barrenetxea (Caja Rural-Seguros RGA) – went on the attack on the way up, forming what would be the break of the day.

They’d be joined by Chris Hamilton (dsm-firmenich) before the top, and then by Jonathan Caicedo (EF Education-EasyPost) on the descent, making it eight out front with Fernandez crashing and chasing back.

The peloton, happy with the situation, let the move go, the gap ticking up to the eight-minute mark on the rolling roads after the climb as the riders hit the final 100km. The situation remained calm for the next 20km or so, at least until the crosswinds hit once again.

Soudal-QuickStep and Jumbo-Visma pushed the pace on an exposed section of road, breaking up the peloton in the process and creating echelons down the road, with 21 riders making the front split.

All the GC contenders of the top 10 were there, barring Lenny Martinez (Groupama-FDJ) and Wout Poels (Bahrain Victorious), with Soudal-QuickStep, UAE Team Emirates, and Bahrain Victorious placing three men apiece in the group and Jumbo-Visma with four men.

The increased pace behind took four minutes off the breakaway’s lead, with the lead echelon lying at 4:20 down heading into the final 70km as the next group chased a further 1:10 down.

It would take 20km for the two groups to come back together, with Groupama-FDJ eventually leading the chasers across at the 50km mark, by which point the breakaway’s advantage had fallen to 3:30.

But with Jumbo-Visma taking over and calming things down, the break rebuilt their lead on the run to the summit finish, with the gap reaching out over five minutes again as they hit the final 30km.

The leaders made it to the final climb with five minutes in hand over the Jumbo-led peloton, all eight men still intact after a relatively drama-free stage. Ahead of them lay the 8.2km, 5.5% Alto Caravaca de la Cruz featuring multiple stretches of road at over 15% gradient.

Hamilton was the first to attack the break, leading to Navarro, Barrenetxea, and Fernandez to drop off the rear. Caicedo was the next to go at 6km out, while Hamilton also dropped shortly afterwards.

Back in the peloton, Soudal-QuickStep were in charge, while up front Kämna made what turned out to be the winning move at 5km to go. He swiftly built a gap of 15 seconds to his closest challenger Sobrero, a gap that the Italian wouldn’t be able to close.

Attacks from Almeida and Vlasov animated the peloton further down the mountain, but it was Roglič who made the biggest impression, jumping just before the 2.05km marker with Evenepoel unable to respond to the acceleration.

While Kämna battled his way up the climb’s steepest gradients and on to victory, the GC men and the peloton were able to relax and soft pedal to the finish, an odd sight given the man-to-man battle unfolding in the breakaway.

Kämna did eventually raise his arms in victory for the ninth time in his career, leading home Sobrero and Hamilton to round off what was an unexpectedly chaotic and eventful day at the Vuelta a España.

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