Extremadura hosted its first ever summit finish at the season’s final Grand Tour.
The third weekend of the race brought a 167.5km mountain stage, a leg-sapping one that took the riders over the short but viciously steep Alto Collado de Ballesteros on the way to Pico Villuercas, a 14.5km climb averaging 6.2% that featured for the first time on the race. The day belonged to a large breakaway group, from where Romain Bardet (Team DSM) attacked to claim the victory at the top.
Helped by his Deceuninck – Quick-Step teammates Andrea Bagioli, Josef Cerny, stage 13 winner Florian Sénéchal, Zdenek Stybar and Bert Van Lerberghe, Fabio Jakobsen beat the time cut on this hard stage and made a trip to the podium to collect his eighth green jersey since the start of the race. The Dutchman, victorious so far in two stages, continues to enjoy a comfortable margin in the points classification with seven days remaining at this edition.
Vuelta a España continues Sunday with another mountain stage, containing four classified climbs, from Navalmoral de la Mata to El Barraco, which could see the breakaway prevail again, especially as the GC men will have their own fight.
Photo credit: ©Tim De Waele / Getty Images
