Eddie Dunbar takes a stage that once again leaves battle among the favorites in La Vuelta 2024

The second Galician stage of La Vuelta a España 2024, like the previous day, gave us a spectacle of the best cycling divided on several fronts: the long fight to form the breakaway of the day, the battle for the stage among high-level men, and today, the favorites looking to cut time to a Ben O'Connor who once again showed his weakness on steep climbs as it happened in Cazorla.

Eddie Dunbar takes a stage that once again leaves battle among the favorites

We criticized the attitude of the cyclists during the flat stages of the first week and, to be fair, they have more than earned forgiveness after giving us good cycling in recent days. Something that has undoubtedly been helped by the route of the stages through Galician lands, always complicated terrain, full of traps and worthy of the spring classics that are always a guarantee of spectacle.

Precisely, almost like a classic, the 11th stage of this Vuelta 2024 can be classified, which had its start and finish near A Coruña, specifically at the Cortizo Technological Campus located in Padrón with a route that made different loops in the area looking for traps and narrow roads, including 4 categorized climbs: the San Xusto pass, two ascents to the Aguasantas pass and, crowned just 8 kilometers from the finish, the Cruxeiras pass, a short but very tough wall that could well be taken from the route of Liège-Bastogne-Liège.

With such a route, as it could not be otherwise, the script of yesterday was repeated with a fierce battle to be part of the breakaway of the day. A battle that lasted more than 70 kilometers until, after several kilometers in which Victor Campenaerts was maintaining a few tens of seconds, a numerous split occurred behind him, and in an ugly attitude, Decathlon-AG2R La Mondiale blocked the road occupying the entire width to encourage the breakaway and finally have a quiet day.

Even so, some more cyclists managed to avoid the blockade, which even caused the fall of Richard Carapaz when he touched one of the cyclists of the French team. Undoubtedly, a good opportunity for the judges-referees present in the Spanish tour to debut the yellow cards that were introduced as a novelty.

Returning to the competition, a huge group of 38 units was formed in front with the aforementioned Campenaerts, Brandon Rivera, Attila Valter, Daniel Felipe Martínez, Pelayo Sánchez, Filippo Zana, or Ion Izagirre, to name the most notable. Although the attacks continued among them seeking a more select group, in the end they were condemned to understand each other, although without a problem since, from behind, they had the blessing to go for the stage.

Among all the battle to select the group, already in the first climb to Aguasantas, Xandro Meurisse left who made his way and achieved a juicy lead of more than a minute that, finally, Israel-PremierTech had to break down, present in the breakaway with four units, among them, a George Bennett who was 9'50'' in the general classification and threatened to get among the top three in the classification when the difference with the peloton was almost 7 minutes, a limit at which Movistar Team behind decided to collaborate with Decathlon-AG2R La Mondiale to start reducing the differences and avoid giving wings to another high-level cyclist.

Only the ascent to Cruxeiras remained to decide the stage, with attacks starting already in its approach by Victos Campenaerts to anticipate knowing that he would have no chance on the climb. These movements only served to split the group in two just before the start of the ascent, which Urko Berrade took advantage of to attack, with Carlos Verona and Filippo Zana following his wheel.

It seemed that they were opening a gap and that the stage could be for them, but in the final part, many of the cyclists who were chasing managed to catch up. Amid the confusion that ensued, the last desperate attacks came in the last kilometers to try to surprise, and in the midst of the chaos, Eddie Dunbar of Jayco-AlUla took advantage of a pause to come out of the corner and manage to open enough gap to achieve his first victory in a grand tour.

Behind, the peloton arrived at Cruxeiras with Red Bull-BORA-hansgrohe entering strongly in the climb, and in the first steep ramps, Adam Yates first gave way, and shortly after, Ben O'Connor himself along with the rest of the favorites except Primoz Roglic who accelerated the pace and went ahead with Enric Mas on his wheel.

Richard Carapaz assumed the task of catching up from behind, and Skjelmosse, Landa, and Gaudu took advantage of it to break away and reach the wheel of Enric Mas and Primoz Roglic after the Slovenian slowed down due to the refusal of the Mallorcan to collaborate in making the split go ahead, even though initially he did take a turn.

The acceleration of Landa, Skjelmosse, and Gaudu also had the collateral effect of the leader being cut off, and from there to the finish, he had to mark himself a small time trial to minimize the losses. Finally, Carapaz conceded 14 seconds, and 37 seconds later, the group in which O'Connor and Yates were arrived, tightening the general classification a bit more before the mountain stages that we will enjoy in the coming days, the next one, tomorrow itself, with a finish at the Mountain Station of Manzaneda.

Stage 11 Classification

1. Eddie Dunbar (Jayco-AlUla) 3h44'52''
2. Quinten Hermans (Alpecin-Deceuninck) +02''
3. Max Poole (DSM-firmenich-PostNL) +02''
4. Jhonatan Narváez (INEOS-Grenadiers) +04''
5. Urko Berrade (Kern-Pharma) +04''
6. Filippo Zana (Jayco-AlUla) +04''
7. Ion Izagirre (Cofidis) +04''
8. Carlos Verona (Lidl-Trek) +04''
9. Gianmarco Garofoli (Astana) +04''
10. Brandon McNulty (UAE Team Emirates) +04''

General Classification

1. Ben O'Connor (Decathlon-AG2R La Mondiale) 43h54'54''
2. Primoz Roglic (Red Bull-BORA-hansgrohe) +3'16''
3. Enric Mas (Movistar Team) +3'58''
4. Richard Carapaz (EF Education-EasyPost) +4'10''
5. Mikel Landa (TRex-QuickStep) +4'40''
6. Carlos Rodríguez (INEOS Grenadiers) +5'23''
7. Florian Lipowitz (Red Bull-BORA-hansgrohe) +5'29''
8. Adam Yates (UAE Team Emirates) +5'30''
9. Felix Gall (Decathlon-AG2R La Mondiale) +5'30''
10. George Bennett (Israel-PremierTech) +5'46''