Vuelta a España: Clément Champoussin wins stage 20

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Clement Champoussin (AG2R Citroen) claimed the biggest victory of his career on a dramatic penultimate stage of the Vuelta a España, which saw Miguel Angel Lopez (Movistar) tumble off the overall podium and storm out of the race entirely. 

Champoussin was part of a large breakaway that built a lead of 11 minutes on an increasingly hilly day in Galicia, but it wasn’t as simple as that. The main escape was actually caught ahead of the final category-2 climb, as race leader Primož Roglič (Jumbo-Visma), Enric Mas (Movistar), Adam Yates (Ineos Grenadiers), Jack Haig (Bahrain Victorious) hit out, having sailed clear of a group containing Lopez and Egan Bernal (Ineos Grenadiers) earlier in the stage. 

That quartet caught the break’s last survivor, Ryan Gibbons (UAE Team Emirates) with 4km to go, but a game of cat and mouse ensued, and they stalled to a point that Champoussin suddenly joined the group and shot straight out the front of it with 1,500 metres to go. The Frenchman used a downhill dip to gain 20 seconds and, despite all his efforts in the day’s break, managed to survive the final kick to the line and bring home his first Grand Tour stage victory. 

Roglič launched another uphill sprint for second place at six seconds, with Yates taking third place as he finished a couple of seconds later alongside Mas. Haig, who had been dangling on the climb, finished fourth at 12 seconds but was, in a way, the day’s big winner, as he moved onto the overall podium behind Roglič and Mas.

That was because of Lopez’s nightmare afternoon, which destroyed Movistar’s hopes of having two riders on the final podium but gave them plenty of material for the next instalment of their Netflix series. It all started when Ineos Grenadiers ripped the race to pieces as the five categorised climbs began in the second half of the 202km route from Sanxeno to Mos. On the hardest one, the category-1 Alto de Mougás, Yates created a selection of a dozen riders some 60km out, which was shortly followed by a brace of Bernal attacks. López was actually alive to the second one but, when Yates counter-punched, he sat back as Mas went over to it with Roglič and Haig, plus Haig’s teammate Gino Mader. The gap yawned before Lopez realised no one else had an interest in chasing, with Bernal happy to risk losing the white jersey to Mader in favour of Yates, who was aiming for the stage win but was himself moving towards the podium. 

The gap was 35 seconds at the top of the climb and it ballooned on the pedalling descent, reaching three minutes by the time they hit sea level in Baiona. At that point, Lopez dramatically called off the chase, sitting up and letting the podium sail away into the distance. He soon found reinforcements from behind and managed to peg the damage at 4:30 heading towards the last two climbs, but rumours soon started to fly that he had stopped and climbed off his bike. Video footage emerged of him talking on his phone and getting into a team car, with staff and teammates reportedly pleading with him to continue. The subsequent events were shrouded in mystery but Lopez did not finish the stage. 

Meanwhile, riders were fighting to win the stage. Gibbons, who’d attacked the break on the descent of the Mougas, clung on impressively over the cat-2 Alto de Prado and again found more room on the descent. The rest of the breakaway were caught just ahead of the final cat-2 climb of Castro de Herville, as the first GC group continued its charge, now powered by Mark Padun, who’d dropped back from that breakaway to help the Haig cause. 

Yates lit things up on the climb itself, quickly forming a quartet with Roglič, Mas, and Haig, but he was never able to get away. They had pretty much caught Gibbons at the top of the steep section half-way up, but stalled and allowed the South African to spin away and find 20 seconds again. The patter continued all the way to the top. Whenever they accelerated, that quartet moved far quicker than anyone else, but they also slowed to a near-standstill on several occasions. Mikel Bizkarra (Eusktal-Euskadi) repeatedly tried to profit from the inaction, but in the end, in another late twist to a dramatic day, it was Champoussin who suddenly appeared in the final 1500 metres. 

In the blink of an eye he was gone, and that was that. 

Roglič collected his fourth runner-up placing of this Vuelta but calmly dealt with a potentially treacherous penultimate stage to move to within 33.8 kilometres of a third Vuelta title. Thanks to a small time gap and the bonus seconds, he actually increased his lead over Mas to 2:38 ahead of Sunday’s time trial, with Haig now in third at 4:48. Yates moved up from sixth to fourth, a minute behind Haig, leapfrogging his teammate Bernal, who handed the white jersey over to Mader, now fifth at 8:14.

How it unfolded

The penultimate stage of the 2021 Vuelta a España was among the longest of the race, measuring in at 202 kilometres from Sanxenxo to Castro de Herville in Mos in the far west of Galicia. Five classified climbs and 3,200 metres of climbing lay along the way on the Vuelta's final road stage, all stuffed into the final half of a day described by route designer and hometown hero Óscar Pereiro as "a trap".

The Alto de Vilachán (third category, 6.5km at 5.4 per cent), Alto de Mabia (second category, 6km at 5.7 per cent), Alto de Mougás (first category, 9.8km at 6.4 per cent), Alto de Prado (second category, 5.5km at 6.3 per cent) lay in wait for the riders before a final summit finish at Mos. Castro de Herville (second category, 9.7km at 4.8 per cent) with sections of double-digit gradients along the way.

As expected for the final Grand Tour road stage of the season, there was a fierce battle for the breakaway as soon as the flag was dropped, with many familiar faces from the past three weeks back at the front again looking to make the move of the day. Romain Bardet (Team DSM) was among the early attackers along with teammate Nico Denz and former red jersey Rein Taaramäe (Intermarché-Wanty-Gobert), though it took some time for the move to fully form.

Matteo Trentin (UAE Team Emirates) and Stan Dewulf (AG2R Citroën) were the men who provoked what turned out to be the final move, jumped away after 30 kilometres of racing and drawing out a larger group behind. They were joined up front by Clément Champoussin (AG2R Citroën), Mark Padun (Bahrain Victorious), Jesus Herrada (Cofidis), Jan Hirt (Intermarché-Wanty-Gobert), Nick Schultz (Team BikeExchange), and the DSM trio of Romain Bardet, Chris Hamilton, and KOM leader Michael Storer.

By the time the riders had passed the 50-kilometre mark, another six men had bridged across to make it 16 up front: Floris de Tier (Alpecin-Fenix) and Sylvain Moniquet (Lotto Soudal) are chasing, followed by Lilian Calmejane (AG2R Citroën), Dani Navarro (Burgos-BH), Mikel Bizkarra (Euskaltel Euskadi) and Ryan Gibbons (UAE Team Emirates).

With Jumbo-Visma controlling the peloton on behalf of race leader Roglič, there was no worry in letting the break go, and the leaders quickly built a gap of eight minutes over the 

hilly terrain that marked the early mid-point of the stage. As the riders passed the halfway mark, that gap had gone out to over 10 minutes with the hardest terrain yet to come and 11:30 as the break started the Alto de Vilachán just after 100 kilometres of racing.

On the climb, which saw Storer pick up the maximum three KOM points unchallenged, Ineos Grenadiers took up the pacemaking in the peloton, sending two men up in front of Egan Bernal as they sliced two minutes off the break's advantage.

After a short descent, it was more of the same on the Alto de Mabia - 6km at 5.7 per cent. Storer helped himself to the maximum haul of KOM points as Ineos ramped things up even more through Pavel Sivakov. By the top, real damage had been done, with the peloton thinned to around 30 riders and the gap to the breakaway trimmed to six minutes. The breakaway had already thinned itself on the climb, and Trentin then launched a solo attack on the descent to help create a proper selection. Gibbons, Bardet and Calmejane got across to him first, while Padun bridged across later. 

They were soon on the day’s toughest climb, the Alto de Mougás - 9.8km long at 6.4 per cent. Storer, Herrada, Champoussin, Hirt, De Tier, Moniquet got themselves back into the lead breakaway group but the real action was unfolding behind. Ineos continued their charge through Sivakov and Tom Pidcock, but things truly kicked off when Yates hit the front and raised the pace with 60km still to go. Almost instantly, he had split the reduced peloton into an elite group of seven, with Roglič, Kruijswijk, Mas, Lopez Haig, and Bernal the only ones able to follow.

When David De la Cruz, Rafal Majka, Wout Poels, Gino Mader, and Felix Grossscharter used a lull to claw their way back, Bernal kicked again. Haig was right on the case, and Lopez responded as well, but Bernal soon knocked off his effort. It wasn’t long, though, before Yates jumped, and it proved to be the day’s decisive move. Mader jumped on it and Roglič himself hit out to chase. Mas and Haig went after it and the group was formed. It took a while for Lopez to realise his podium place was under threat and he hit the front of the chase group, with Bernal in his wheel and no help from anyone else. 

By the top, where Storer helped himself to yet more KOM points, the breakaway was four minutes ahead of the leading GC group, which was itself already 37 seconds up on the Lopez and Bernal group, which also contained Poels, De la Cruz, Majka, and Grossschartner. 

On the pedalling descent, Gibbons launched an opportunistic attack up front and got away, while Mader buried himself for the Haig cause, with Yates, Roglič, and Mas simply sitting in. When they hit sea level in Baiona, their advantage over the Lopez group had nearly reached three minutes - Lopez had virtually lost his podium place to Haig and was about to be overtaken on GC by Yates. On the flat coast road, with dropped breakaway riders being caught - importantly including a new engine for Bahrain Victorious in the form of Padun - a frustrated Lopez suddenly decided to call a halt to the chase. The pace completely and dramatically drained from that group, and the gap quickly went out above four minutes. They were soon caught by a group of riders dropped by the Ineos assault not he previous climb, and Lopez leant on Jose Joaquin Rojas to stem the tide, although they were now seemingly chasing a lost cause. Meanwhile, in the first GC group

The penultimate climb was the Alto de Prado - 5.5km at 6.3 per cent - and Gibbons hit it alone with a lead of 1:30 and with just over 30km to go. Bardet ignited the chase group with an acceleration, while his teammate Storer raised the pace on the steep upper slopes, causing Trentin to be briefly dropped. Gibbons reached the summit with a lead of 50 seconds over Storer, Bardet, Hirt, Moniquet, Herrada, Champoussin, and Trentin. Mader led the first GC group over the top just over a minute later, by which point their advantage over the larger Lopez/Bernal group had stabilised at 4:30. 

Gibbons once again used the descent to gain time, pushing back out to 90 seconds, while the chasers started attacking each other on the approach to the final climb. After much looking around, they looked around and saw the red jersey coming up, with Padun and Mader still dragging that group. The catch was made just as they started the final climb - 9km at 4.8 per cent - at which point Gibbons was still 1:30 ahead. Curiously, Lopez was no longer in the chase group with Bernal, with reports swirling that he’d stopped in frustration at the situation and was threatening to abandon the race there and then. 

Gibbons weathered the gentle lower slopes of the final climb but he started to lose ground on the double-digit stuff towards the middle. Bizarre kicked off the attacks behind, shortly before Yates reignited the direct GC battle with an out-of-the-saddle open-mouthed acceleration. Haig suffered in the chase before Roglič sprinted after Yates and shut the door in no time. Mas was with Roglič while Haig took a little longer in clawing his way across, but they formed an elite quartet 30 seconds behind Gibbons with 6km to go. 

Yates soon kicked again, briefly dropping Haig until he eased the pace, and it was Roglič who produced the next injection of pace. That almost wiped out Gibbons’ advantage, but he moved clear again with 5km to go when the quartet started looking at each other and almost came to a standstill on the flatter section of the climb. That allowed Bizkarra to get back to them and ping off the front. That lasted a kilometre or so, but Yates then lifted it again and they worked their way past Bizkarra and over to Gibbons in the blink of an eye. 

With 3km to go, they slowed again. Mas broke the silence and it was Gibbons who went after it, before trying to get away again. Another lull allowed a few others back in, and another Bizkarra attack, with Chapoussin suddenly appearing to do the sae thing with 1500 metres to go. There was a near-complete standstill in the GC quartet, as Bardet himself went straight through briefly. That allowed Champoussin to take 20 seconds onto the little downhill under the flamme rouge. The road kicked up again with a vengeance, but the Frenchman burst out of the saddle and got the job done. 

Bizkarra had gone after him but was again swarmed by the GC riders as Roglič collected his fourth runner-up placing, to go with his three stage wins. As calm as you like from the two-time champion on a chaotic day, but the same cannot be said for Lopez, with the fall-out and intrigue set to rumble on.