Jay Vine secures back-to-back win for UAE Team Emirates-XRG at the Vuelta a España stage 6 AURORATOTO GROUP

Jay Vine impressively won the sixth stage of Vuelta a España, securing another win for his team, the UAE Team Emirates-XRG, in only two days. At 29 years old, Vine did his best and raced alone to the finish line, securing the stage win and earning the blue and white polka dot jersey as the leader in the mountain classification category. 

With this, Vine admitted: “It was definitely to win the stage, but there was always the option that if the break wasn’t going to win, that I could come back and do some work.” 

“I know these roads pretty well. I’m from just down the hill, and La Comella is my favourite climb in all of Andorra. I would’ve normally liked to have done it way harder, but with the headwind, it was hard to get the guys to pull through and make it really hard,” he added. 

Highlights of the race

The sixth stage of the Vuelta a España covered 170 kilometres from Olot to Pal in Andorra. This particular stage had four big climbs, with a total of 3,600 meters of elevation gain. These climbs are: Coll de Sentigosa (11.4 km at 4.1% gradient), Collada de Toses (24.3 km at 3.5%), La Comella (4.2 km at 8%), and the final climb to Pal (9.6 km at 6.3%) reaching 1,901 metres high. This stage tested the athlete’s climbing skills and endurance through challenging climbs and changing weather conditions. 

The race began with the peloton going straight up the first climb. Early attacks were led by 10 riders breaking away, including Jay Vine, Torstein Træen, Lorenzo Fortunato, and Bruno Armirail.

Throughout the race, the teams maintained their pace, with the breakaway group having four-to-six-minute leads at different points. 

Vine took charge on the last climb, moving ahead on the climb to La Comella and then maintaining a strong lead on the final ascent to Pal. In the final kilometres of the race, no one was able to catch Vine, who then clinched the victory. 

In the peloton, riders battled on the steep finishes, including Jonas Vingegaard, who tried to defend his lead. The sixth stage ended with a small group of riders finishing together behind the winner. Furthermore, UAE Team Emirates’s other key rider, Juan Ayuso, unfortunately dropped out of the main group 4km from the finish line. With this, João Almeida is now the only UAE rider still competing for the overall top spot. Almeida finished with the main group, along with Vingegaard, Ciccone, and Bernal. 

In the previous stage, the UAE Team Emirates-XRG won the team trial in a span of 25 minutes and 26 seconds. This marked the team’s 74th victory of the year. Read more about the Stage 5 results here.