Visma | Lease a Bike plan disintegrates into thousands of pieces: Groves delivers painful defeat to Van Aert

The day after Michael Woods' stunning stage victory, the Vuelta a España had another breakaway stage on the agenda. There was some climbing, but it was nothing compared to Friday and Sunday. We had some steep sections to tackle on those days, but on Saturday, it only climbed between four and five percent on average.

That started with a long run-up stage from Villafrance del Bierzo, where it was slightly uphill for a hundred kilometers. That phase was capped off with the Puerto de Cerredo, a seven-kilometer climb at 4.6 percent average. An intermediate stage was then followed by the De Puerto de Leitariegos (22.8 km at 4.5%): a runner that was nowhere steep, unlike many other Spanish climbs. And so many potential baroudeurs would have circled this stage, we expected.

The first half hour of the race was all about attacks, attacks, attacks, and more attacks. However, no one managed to escape, so we were treated to a tasty "Who will be in the breakaway of the day?" piece. In the end, six guys managed to get away from the peloton: Marco Frigo (Israel-Premier Tech), Jhonatan Narvaez (INEOS Grenadiers), Isaac del Toro (UAE-Team Emirates), Victor Campenaerts (Lotto-Dstny), Xandro Meurisse (Alpecin-Deceuninck) and Harold Tejada (Astana Qazaqstan Team).

Unfortunately for the sextet, mountain, and points king Van Aert had already announced his desire to win this stage. And so the killer bees of Visma | Lease a Bike quickly took over the peloton and controlled the breakaway. The lead of the six, therefore, never exceeded three minutes. Edoardo Affini and Robert Gesink worked hard to serve the Flemish leader.

Once arrived on the flanks of the Puerto de Leitariegos, the breakaway quickly disintegrated. Narvaez, Tejada, and Frigo were the strongest, while Campenaerts, Meurisse, and Del Toro were caught. The remaining trio in front maintained a nice lead, with continuous advances between 55 and 30 seconds.

After Gesink and Affini, it was up to Uijtdebroeks and Kruijswijk to take back the breakaway riders. However, that took slightly longer than expected: it was getting pretty exciting! When the peloton reached 25 seconds, and Frigo in the leading group was not catching up, Narvaez-in-form thought it was enough and decided to go off on his own. But even for him, it looked like it would be a difficult task...

And so it happened, with Narvaez being caught 19 kilometers from the finish. And so all eyes could be set on a sprint. But who was going to be there? Van Aert, but also fast guys like Corbin Strong and Kaden Groves. And what about that Vacek, who also rode strong all around? It didn't seem like a done deal for Van Aert, who also had to deal with stage winner Pavel Bittner.

Who was going to be the fastest in Villablino? Or would someone still make a final attack? Fourteen kilometers from the finish, top favorite Primoz Roglic suffered mechanical failure, although it didn't seem to cause any further (time) problems. There were no attacks either, meaning the stage was "just" a sprint. And that in a mountain stage! In the sprint, it was a genuine duel between Van Aert and Groves, with the latter eventually winning the race and handing the Belgian a painful defeat.