Bittersweet Sunday for Wout van Aert at the Vuelta
Kaden Groves wins second Vuelta stage, Van Aert in red jersey
It's Kaden Groves the winner of the second stage of the Vuelta a España 2024, a 191-kilometer stage starting in Cascais and finishing in Ourém, raced entirely on Portuguese soil (it will return to Spain on Tuesday, after another stage in Portugal). The Alpecin-Deceuninck rider was ahead of Wout van Aert (Team Visma-Lease a Bike), who, as in the first stage, the Lisbon-Oeiras time trial on Saturday, è had to settle for the day’s podium, missing out on victory by a whisker.
Today’s second place è however, was useful to Van Aert himself, who thanks to the 6" of bonus canò wear the red jersey of leader of the general classification, bypassing Brandon McNulty (UAE Team Emirates), who on Saturday had collected only 3" of advantage over the Belgian and who today è instead ended up in the belly of the group.
In the overall standings, therefore, Wout van Aert leads with a total time of 5h25'27": that’s 3 seconds ahead of McNulty and 5 seconds ahead of Mathias Vacek (Lidl-Trek), who occupies third place in the ranking. As for the other jerseys, the green one (points classification) è appanage of Kaden Groves, the polka-dot one (best climber) è on the shoulders of Stefan Küng, while Vacek è earned the right to wear the white one (best Under 26).
Chapter Italians: Filippo Baroncini (UAE Team Emirates) took part in the sprint, finishing tenth, while in the general classification è Edoardo Affini (Team Visma-Lease a Bike) was the best, with a time 11 seconds slower, overall, than teammate Van Aert.
