La Vuelta Ciclista a España 2024 Stage 6

August 22, 2024 A Carrefour super market hosted the start of Stage 6 with the riders rolling out the front door to take in 3,580M of elevation to finish on top of the category 3 Alto de las Abejas after 185 kilometers. A hectic start saw 33 riders go up the road but they were caught and the attacks continued. At 100KM to go, a group 13 got away and had 1 minute but riders were still jumping from the bunch. Redbull-Bora Hansgrohe got control and the break was allowed to build their lead to around 4 minutes at 72KM to go. The gap got to 5 minutes and with GC threats like Ben O'Connor of Decathlon AG2R and Florian Lipowitz of Redbull-Bora Hansgrohe up the road, it was becoming dangerous. Bahrain-Victorious blinked first and they started riding to bring the gap down. O'Connor didn't think the break was working very well so he attacked and took with Gijs Leemreize of DSM-Firmenich with him. The leading pair went over the Puerto del Viento with 55KM to go with 1 minute on the rest of the chase group and 5 minutes 30 seconds on the peloton. The gaps remained the same for next 20KM. UAE started to ride in the peloton at 34KM to go to limit the gains made by O'Connor. Leemreize was dropped by O'Connor with 27.5KM to go on the Puerto Martinez. Despite the efforts of the peloton, O'Connor held 6 minutes. He hit the final 8.8KM climb at 3.3% with a gap of 6 minutes 30 seconds. Movistar was riding but still was not able to make any difference. Ben O'Connor completed one of the greatest raids on GC that we have seen in the last decade. He kept his 6 minute 30 second advantage to the bunch meaning that he now leads La Vuelta by 4 minutes 51 seconds. With the win, he also completed the Grand Tour Grand Slam of victories in all three Grand Tours. Marco Frigo of Israel-Premier Tech and Florian Lipowitz hung on for second and third from the break.