Australia's Jay Vine claimed stage eight of the Vuelta a España with an impressive solo climb on Saturday as Belgian Remco Evenepoel maintained his advantage at the top of the general classification.
However, Ireland's Sam Bennett lost the sprinter's green jersey to Mads Pedersen of Denmark. Bennett is in second place, five points down.
Pedersen captured the green jersey from Bennett after scoring 20 points in the intermediate points sprint.
It was a second stage win in three days for Vine, who made his move and sped away from the breakaway group with 6km to go, finishing ahead of Marc Soler, who threatened with a late surge, and Rein Taaramee.
🏆 Líderes tras la etapa 8⃣ | Leaders after stage 8⃣
❤️ 🇧🇪 @EvenepoelRemco - @qst_alphavinyl
💚 🇩🇰 @Mads__Pedersen - @TrekSegafredo
💙 🇦🇺 @JayVine3 - @AlpecinDCK
🤍 🇧🇪 Remco Evenepoel - QST AlphaVinyl
🚴🚴🚴 @TeamEmiratesUAE
👊 🇪🇸 @MikelLandaMeana - @BHRVictorious#LaVuelta22 pic.twitter.com/NmSTvZDS2o— La Vuelta (@lavuelta) August 27, 2022
Advertisement
"It's incredible, I think I've just got so much more confidence after the first [win]. I've got that monkey off my back and it just felt so much more natural riding in the group today," said Vine.
"All the pressure was off me, I had two goals and if one didn't pay off I always had the King of Mountains jersey to fall back on. I had a lot more confidence in myself and just enjoyed myself - today was such a fun day."
Evenepoel, Enric Mas and Primoz Roglic all finished on the same time, allowing the Quick-Step Alpha Vinyl rider to preserve his 28-second lead in the race for the overall leader's red jersey.
The 153.4km stage from Pola de Laviana to Collau Fancuaya proved to be another difficult outing for some of the other contenders as the likes of Joao Almeida, Juan Ayuso, Hugh Carthy and Jai Hindley all lost more than 50 seconds.
Action continues in the Vuelta on Sunday when the riders tackle the 171.4km course from Villaviciosa to Les Praeres.
