MADRID, Aug. 23 (Xinhua) -- Wout van Aert (Visma-Lease a Bike) won a reduced sprint in Cordoba in the seventh stage of the Vuelta a Espana (Tour of Spain) cycle race to claim his second stage of the race.
Van Aert finished just ahead of Mathias Vacek (Lidl-Trek) and Pau Miquel (Equipo Kern Pharma) after the 180.5-kilometer stage exploded into life on the ascent of the only categorized climb of the day - the second category Alto del 14% - just under 40 kilometers from the finish.
Until the Alto del 14%, another hot day in the south of Spain had been dominated by a solo ride from Xabier Isasa (Euskaltel-Euskadi) who rode ahead of the peloton for 142 kilometers on his own, without ever looking as if he would be allowed to win the stage.
Primoz Roglic (Red Bull-Bora Hansgrohe) attacked on the climb as he looked to pressure overall leader Ben O'Connor (Decathlon-Ag2r La Mondiale) and the Slovenian was rewarded by six bonus seconds which reduce O'Connor's overall lead to four minutes and 45 seconds.
Marc Soler (UAE-Team Emirates) then went for glory on the descent, and was able to open a gap of 22 seconds over the leading group, but Van Aert's team-mate Sepp Kuss put himself at the front of the chase, with Soler reeled in 3.5 kilometers from the finish.
Pavel Sivakov (UAE-Team Emirates) tried another escape, the Visma team weren't going to let him get to the line and he was caught with around 500 meters to go, setting up the sprint, which Van Aert won with relative ease, before thanking last year's Vuelta winner Kuss for his efforts.
"The defending champion of the race, pulling for me, says a lot about our philosophy (as a team)," commented Van Aert.
Saturday sees another 'half-mountain' stage with few chances for the riders to relax in a relatively short 158 kilometers between Ubeda and Cazorla, which ends with a steep third category climb to the finish that Roglic could use to try and pull time back off O'Connor. ■
