With a perfect lead-out from Quick-Step Floors, Elia Viviani dominated the sprint at Bermillo de Sayago on Tuesday. The Italian sprinter takes his second stage win at La Vuelta 18, a week after a first victory at Alhaurin de la Torre. This time, he outsprinted the World champion Peter Sagan (Bora-Hansgrohe) and fellow Italian sprinter Giacomo Nizzolo (Trek-Segafredo). Simon Yates (Mitchelton-Scott) went through the day without problem and retains the red jersey.
It took some battle for attackers to find an opening. After 8 fast kilometres, Jesus Ezquerra (Burgos-BH) went solo and quickly opened a 2-minute lead while other riders kept trying to jump ahead of the bunch. Katusha Alpecin were among the most active and Tiago Machado eventually bridged the gap after 30km.
The front duo then enjoyed a 3’10’’ lead and pushed it up to 4’ with 110km to go. Sprinters’ teams were quickly in action, with Elia Viviani’s Quick-Step Floors, Nacer Bouhanni’s Cofidis, Peter Sagan’s Bora-Hansgrohe and Giacomo Nizzolo’s Trek-Segafredo working together to control the gap. It was down under 2 minutes as the race entered the last 50km.
The attackers’ lead was down to 1’14’’ at the bottom of the climb of the day, the Alto de Fermoselle (4.9km at 5.3%), where Sagan’s teammates seriously upped the tempo. Tiago Machado tried to push on his own but he was reeled in the last 2km of ascent, 31km away from the finish line.
Diego Rubio (Burgos-BH) jumped ahead of the peloton with 22km to go. His lead never got higher than 20’’ and the pack caught him 9km away from the finish. Quick-Step Flors stayed in control until the end and Elia Viviani made the most of a perfect lead-out to take his second win at La Vuelta 18.
