Nick Doup • Sunday, August 27, 2023 at 5:51 PM
An incident-rich second stage of the Vuelta a España 2023 was won on Sunday by Andreas Kron. After a soaking wet stage, with many crashes and the climb of Montjuïc in the final, Lotto Dstny’s Dane was the best on an ascending arrival in Barcelona. There is also a new leader in the general classification: Lorenzo Milesi crashed and had to give up his jersey to Andrea Piccolo (EF Education-EasyPost).
As if the team time trial hadn’t already caused enough commotion, the second stage was not without its mark either. The bad weather conditions and the narrow and technical final worried the riders. After much discussion, it was decided to record the classification times at 9 kilometers from the finish, before turning up the local course with the Montjuïc (2.5 km at 4.5%), a descent and ascending finish line in Barcelona.
Nevertheless, the bonus sprint on Montjuïc (6, 4 and 2 seconds) and the bonuses at the finish (10, 6 and 4 seconds) were maintained.
Jetse Bol was part of the escape – photo: Cor Vos
Jetse Bol slides along in flight
In rainy conditions, the leading group of the day emerged in several slides. Matteo Sobrero (Jayco-AlUla), Andrea Piccolo (EF Education-EasyPost), Javier Romo (Astana Qazaqstan) and Joel Nicolau (Caja Rural-Seguros RGA) soon found each other, after which only Jetse Bol (Burgos-BH) took the plunge could make. The Dutchman avoided ending up in the chasse patate after a chase of about 15 kilometers.
The front runners took more than three minutes on the peloton and battled for the first mountain jersey on the first two climbs. Romo took the first points, but Sobrero won the second category Coll d’Estenalles to secure the white jersey with blue dots. A puncture for Remco Evenepoel caused him to fall a minute behind, but his teammates calmly brought him back into the peloton.
Chaos trumps on slippery roads
In the peloton, control was mainly in the hands of Team dsm-firmenich, which took the red jersey with Lorenzo Milesi after the surprising victory in the team time trial. There was also bad luck for the team, as Oscar Onley gave up in the preliminary final. In that phase the leading group broke in two, because Bol and Nicolau lost the connection to Sobrero, Piccolo and Romo.
Jumbo-Visma in the rainy stage – photo: Cor Vos
Not much later the light went out for Jayco AlUla’s driver, leaving two front runners. Piccolo and Romo still had a minute lead on a nervous peloton with 20 kilometers to go. What’s called, on the very slippery roads it was a casino. Primoz Roglic crashed on a roundabout and was able to continue his way, unlike Onley who fell earlier. Santiago Buitrago was also in a crash, as was red jersey Milesi. The classification leader was in a lot of pain and was going to lose his leader’s jersey.
After Roglic’s crash, Jumbo-Visma tried to calm down the peloton, but that warning fell on deaf ears. Team dsm-firmenich and Alpecin-Deceuninck in particular rode in the lead to catch back the front runners. That had to be done before the 9 kilometer point, because the times were already recorded there. If Piccolo passed there with a lead, he had a good chance for the new leader’s jersey.
Piccolo virtually in the lead, small group goes for stage victory
The peloton briefly came to within 35 seconds of Piccolo and Romo, but the two escapees then ran out again to 50 seconds. In the end, they passed the 9 kilometer mark with an 18-second lead, so that Piccolo virtually took over the lead in the standings with a 12-second lead. Not long after, Piccolo and Romo were caught by the front part of the peloton, which went on to battle for the stage victory on Montjuïc and the last ascending line in Barcelona.
A large part of the peloton, including Remco Evenepoel, demonstratively kept its legs still on the predecessor of Montjuïc. They let about thirty riders ride away. Lidl-Trek, Cofidis and Lotto Dstny tried to make the race hard on Montjuïc. Andreas Kron came over the top with a small lead and was first into the descent.
Andreas Kron is the king of Barcelona – photo: Cor Vos
Andreas Kron wins and honors Tijl De Decker
The Dane from Lotto Dstny started with a small lead on a group of four in the ascending final kilometre. There the cooperation was not good, allowing Kron to ride solo to victory. He pointed to heaven with both hands, in honor of Tijl De Decker, who passed away this week.
Seven seconds later, Kaden Groves (Alpecin-Deceuninck) sprinted to second place and Andrea Vendrame (AG2R Citroën) to third. Lennert Van Eetvelt crossed the line in eighth place and Marijn van den Berg was the first Dutchman to finish in ninth place. Kobe Goossens was tenth and thus ensured another Belgian in the top 10 of the daily result.
The peloton with the big favorites took no chances in the final and crossed the finish line more than six minutes after Kron. A battered red jersey wearer Milesi eventually lost a quarter of an hour.
A victory for Tijl De Decker! 🙏
🇪🇸 #cycling #course #cycling From #LaVuelta #LaVuelta23 @lavuelta pic.twitter.com/JKZOdra9iT
— WielerFlits.nl (@WielerFlits) August 27, 2023
2023-08-27 15:37:00
#Vuelta #Andreas #Kron #solos #victory #eventrich #stage #Barcelona
