La Vuelta Ciclista a España 2024 Stage 18

September 5, 2024 There have not been many opportunities in this Vuelta for Rouleurs and escape artists until today. It's a rolling day through the Basque Country with a final kicker 6KM from the line before a downhill run into Maestu. A very large group of over 40 riders got away but the home team, Euskaltel-Euskadi, missed the break and they were forced to chase. They cut the gap from 3 minutes to 90 seconds as they hit the Alto de Rivas de Tereso. A few of their riders attacked from the peloton which allowed the bunch to finally sit up and have a moment of rest. Members of the original break were not hanging around however. Stefan Küng of Groupama-FDJ pressed on over the top and brought Mathias Vacek of Lidl-Trek, Mauro Schmid of Jayco AlUla with him. The Euskaltel-Euskadi attack never made it to the break and they sat up with around 70KM to go. T-Rex Quickstep took up the chase in the main chase group but they were over 1 minute behind with 60KM to go. The gap quickly came down and the three leaders were caught on the Puerto Herrera with 49KM to go. Marc Soler of UAE took the points over the Puerto Herrera from a reduced group of 13. In the peloton, EF-Education EasyPost rode as hard as they could up the climb and by the top, only 15 riders were left in the bunch with Mikel Landa of T-Rex Quickstep being the only GC rider missing. Most GC teams had an interest to put Landa out of the game and by 20KM to go, his deficit to the main GC group was over 2 minutes 30 seconds. Mattia Cattaneo, who looked to be one of the strongest in the break, was called to wait for Landa with only 13KM to go. In the fight for the stage win, Steven Kruijswijk of Visma-Lease a Bike attacked at the base of the final climb with 6.5KM to go with Urko Berrade of Equipo Kern Pharma on his wheel. Berrade went over the top of Kruijswijk and started the descent at 4KM to go with a gap of 15 seconds but he would not be caught. Berrade gave Equipo Kern Pharma their third win of the race which is an extraordinary feat given their status and budget in world cycling. Schmid took the sprint for second with Pau Miquel of Equipo Kern Pharma another podium spot in third. Miquel was relagated for his sprint and moved to 9th with Max Poole of DSM-Firmenich being promoted to third on the stage. The GC riders came in without further attacks. Landa was the big loser by dropping from 5th to 10th overall.