00:01On to stage 13 of La Vuelta.
00:04There's no GC battle on the menu today, but there should be a fascinating contest between the sprint teams and
00:10the breakaway for the day's victory.
00:12Lots of riders will attack, but only one of them can win.
00:16What is your priority today, the Polkadot jersey or the green jersey?
00:21I would love to prioritise the stage today, the stage win.
00:25It's complicated terrain, there's still a lot of climbing, but it's for sure the second part of the stage that
00:33should suit me, so I hope to be there today.
00:37Kern Farmal will be up for the fight after Urko Burade came second yesterday behind Jakob Omrezel.
00:43The Spaniard, who won stage 18 of La Vuelta 24, has vowed to keep chasing another victory, even if today
00:49may not suit him quite as well.
00:53I've learned from the mistakes of previous breakaways.
00:56Yesterday it went really well for me all day long.
00:59I was beaten by a very strong rider, so all I can do is congratulate him.
01:03And for me, the plan now is to recover and keep trying.
01:08UnuX Mobility have also been gunning for more success since Andreas Lechnesson triumphed on stage 7.
01:14Tobias Johannesson and Magnus Kort have come close, and breakaway regular Andreas Krohn is also one to watch.
01:22At first, I think it will be a big, big fight like all the other days.
01:27And then I hope we go on the climb so that the sprinters are away and then we are a
01:34good group can go.
01:34I had some hard years, but yeah, I'm really on the way back. I feel good and I hope to
01:42get a win.
01:44Stage 13 is going to be a tough one.
01:47Nearly 3,500 metres of elevation gain and temperatures of more than 35 degrees.
01:52The first climb comes early, 14k at 5% that will thin out the peloton and help a breakaway to
01:58form.
01:58And then it's up and down all the way to Loja.
02:01Will it be the breakaway though, or the sprinters, who are going for the win?
02:08Alexey Lutsenko didn't take the start this morning due to illness, while Gregor Mulberger crashed out and Pavel Sivakov also
02:15threw in the towel.
02:16Fatigue and sickness taking their toll towards the end of this second week.
02:21It took a while for the break to form because, as expected, lots of teams wanted to be up at
02:25the front.
02:26On the first climb, Wout van Aert and Santiago Buatrago continued their mano a mano for polka dots, but by
02:32the second climb they were no longer at the front.
02:35The race split into three distinct groups.
02:38The breakaway, a large chase group, and the peloton being paced by Movistar around four minutes back.
02:46Axel Laurence was in the lead group until this happened.
02:49The Frenchman going to ground and eventually picked up by the chasers, leaving ten men at the front and around
02:5530 in pursuit.
02:57In the break then, Matthew Brennan, the clear favourite in a sprint.
03:01Clement Berta, Cristian Rodriguez and Leo Bisio, who began the day 11th, 12th and 13th overall.
03:07Krohn and Lechnersen for Uno X, plus Kevin Vermarker, Guillaume Martanguione, Vincenzo Albanese and Lars Kraps.
03:14In the chase group, fast finishers like van Aert and Magnus Kort, and more riders hoping to move up on
03:20GC, notably Matthias Skjelmoser, 7th overall this morning.
03:24They trialled the break by around a minute and a half.
03:27UAE have been adapting to the loss of Tadej Pogacar, but it's not been easy, with Pablo Torres, Jay Vine
03:33and Sivakov also withdrawing.
03:35One of their four remaining riders was at the front, although for Kevin Vermarker, getting into breakaways wasn't plan A
03:41at this Vuelta.
03:42It definitely takes some effort to get in there, but yeah, I'm trying to practice again a bit after getting
03:50used to riding for Tadej.
03:51I need to sharpen the breakaway skills, so I made it in twice now and hopefully, I think today suits
03:58me a little bit better than yesterday's finish.
04:02Unfortunately, Laurence wasn't the only man to crash today. David de la Cruz also went down from the chase group,
04:09as did Sander de Pestel, a teammate of Felix Galles in the peloton. We hope everyone is okay.
04:17Skjelmoser was now virtually up to 4th place ahead of Carapaz, Onli and Omrazel, so net company Ineos started to
04:23give Movistar a hand with the pacing to defend Onli's position.
04:27The riders approaching the final climb of the day, the Puerto de Granada, with the chase group closing on the
04:33breakaway.
04:36Vermarker going on the attack, with Lechnesund also trying to get away, but in both instances Brennan was there to
04:42close the gap, the three-time stage winner working for his teammate Van Aerts.
04:47On the climb, the strongest riders from the chase group bridged across to the front, including Van Aerts, Skjelmoser, Paré
04:54-Pintre, Fischer-Blac, Ouidar and Zahner, Vermarker leading them over the top.
05:0619 riders now in front, but Van Aerts looked determined to shred the group before the finish line.
05:12Some tired legs in this breakaway, and soon there were only nine men left.
05:17Van Aerts, Brennan, Biziot, Ouidar, Paré-Pintre, Albanese, Vermarker, Dalby and Fischer-Blac.
05:23The rest would not be fighting for the win.
05:28Well, several others tried to attack in the final, because nobody wanted to sprint against Van Aert or Brennan.
05:34They were the only Vuelta stage winners in this front group, with three apiece.
05:39But in the end, it was Van Aert himself who made the decisive move, with 3.7k remaining.
05:44The only man who could follow was Valentin Paré-Pintre, a stage winner at the Giro and the Tour.
05:51The Belgian and the Frenchman soon pulling away from the rest.
05:55So, it would be a two-man sprint between the classic specialist and the lightweight climber.
05:59On paper, there was no way that Van Aert could lose, but funny things can happen in cycling.
06:06And here goes Valentin Paré-Pintre, looking to try and complete the trilogy.
06:10He's now being challenged by Wout Van Aert.
06:12Wout Van Aert has been a Visma Lisa bike masterclass all the way into Loja.
06:18It's a fourth Vuelta stage victory for the green jersey.
06:25Wout Van Aert finally claiming his first stage win of this Vuelta after several near misses.
06:30It's the seventh victory of a season in which he has also conquered Paris-Roubaix and the Tour of Denmark.
06:36Since a training crash in early June which forced him to miss the Tour de France,
06:40the Belgian has slowly been getting back to his best.
06:45I saw the profile and I knew there was this last kicker before coming into the village.
06:52And this distance, a lot of time, is the moment when people start to think about the sprint.
06:56And if you're able to open up a gap, then they don't want to close it for each other anymore.
07:01And yeah, it was close enough to the finish to be worth it.
07:05And with Valentin, he had a nice companion. He gave me a few turns and it was nice to battle
07:12to the line together.
07:18Van Aert out sprinting Paris-Pintre for his 15th Grand Tour stage win.
07:23Brennan took the sprint for third place with the peloton three minutes back.
07:28So, Henrik Maas remains top of the GC pile by 1 minute 45.
07:32Scalmos is still seventh, but he's closed the gap on the riders above him, with Berte into the top ten.
07:38Van Aert has built a solid lead of 65 points in green,
07:41and his nearest rival is unlikely to make life hard for him, given that it's his teammate Brennan.
07:47Bua Trago still has an 18-point lead over Van Aert in the mountains classification,
07:52with the race leader Maas 34 points back in third.
07:57And there are still just 30 seconds separating the top two in the youth classification,
08:02with Oskar Onli leading Jakob Omrazel.
08:05There is GC action to come tomorrow with the summit finish on the punishing climb of Sierra de la Pandera.
08:10Join us for that on Saturday, and thanks for watching.
08:22We'll see you next time.
