La Vuelta: hat-trick for Vine, Traeen in La Roja

 

Vine keeping it steady in Andorra, working towards his La Vuelta hat-trick

The GC at La Vuelta has been shaken up once more on stage 6 as the strong breakaway prevailed on the first mountain top finish for the stage win and also the Red Jersey.

Jay Vine (UAE) was the stage winner and the biggest winner was Torsten Traeen (Bahrain Victorious). The Norwegian finished 2nd and rises 25 places in the GC standings to knock off Jonas Vingegaard at the top and has La Roja. 

Traeen leads the Vuelta by 31 seconds from Bruno Armirail with Lorenzo Fortunato and Louis Vervaeke in 3rd and 4th at 1:01 and 1:58 respectively. Vingegaard drops to 5th now 2:33 down. 

"It feels a bit unexpected. A few days ago, I was talking with the other Norwegian rider here, Johannes (Staune-Mittet). I was talking about a Norwegian GC, and he said: 'You're a loser, because you're so close on the actual GC. 'And I said: 'When I take the red jersey after the Andorra stage, I don't think you'll call me a loser anymore!' To be honest, it was pretty hard. It was already a hard fight to get in the breakaway. 

Then, it was tricky for the first 50 kilometers I would say, and after that I realised there would be a positive at the end of the day. There was still Armirail really close on GC, but I knew the climb would be pretty hard. Vine attacked on the downhill. And I went all out. It was a long last 5 kilometres. I don't know how far I can keep it, maybe tormorrow Jonas already takes it back. That's a possibility."

-Torstein Traeen