2020 Vuelta a Espana – Stage 16 – Highlights, Report, Results
Highlights
Report
The 162km stage, from Salamanca to Ciudad Rodrigo, had a number of factors that teams had to be prepared for. The prevailing winds that could easily cause splits if teams momentarily let their guards down. The heavy climbing packed into the second half including the category one climb, Puerto el Robledo, or descending down from it and hitting the 1km long climb with ramps up to 11%.
As the break was slowly whittled down to just Remi Cavagna (Deceuninck-Quick Step) powering away at the front, the chasing group behind had the collective urge to reel him in. With 4km to go, as Cavagna looked over his shoulder, he knew his chance of victory had fizzled out. As the reduced bunch swallowed Cavagna up, the high pace continued and the stage looked destined to finish in a sprint. With 200m to go, Magnus Cort (EF Pro Cycling) having positioned himself well, could taste victory. There was nothing else to do but go all out to the line.
As Cort crossed the finish line first ahead of Primož Rogliç (Team Jumbo-Visma), his hands held high, the Dane was happy to take his second win of the season, nine months to the date after his first.
Magnus Cort, rider
“I think I timed my sprint pretty well, I came from the last corner in a decent position, not too far away from the front. Then I sat there looking for an opening, and I found that with about 200m to go, maybe a little less, and from there I went with everything that I had.”
“I was never confident that I could win it. Starting today I hadn’t even thought about winning this stage. I thought it would be a more reduced bunch coming in, and I was helping Hugh out, and suddenly I could see my chance to get over the first cat climb with about 25 to 35km to go, and although it wasn’t that much of a reduced group I knew there weren’t many guys faster than me. There was still Cavagna out front, but there were a lot of teams wanting it to come back together.”
“I think the last nine months have been difficult for everyone this year, it means a lot coming back and winning [since my last win nine months ago to the date]. I was coming into good form when we came back after the long break, but then I caught the coronavirus myself and I was out. So I have only been training for three weeks before coming here to this race, and it’s really nice to get the victory here.”
Results
Stage
| 1 | Magnus Cort Nielsen (Den) EF Pro Cycling | 04:04:35 |
| 2 | Primoz Roglic (Slo) Team Jumbo-Visma | |
| 3 | Dion Smith (NZl) Mitchelton-Scott | |
| 4 | Alejandro Valverde (Spa) Movistar Team | |
| 5 | Richard Carapaz (Ecu) Ineos Grenadiers | |
| 6 | Felix Grossschartner (Aut) Bora-Hansgrohe | |
| 7 | Dorian Godon (Fra) AG2R la Mondiale | |
| 8 | Michael Valgren (Den) NTT Pro Cycling | |
| 9 | Jasha Sütterlin (Ger) Team Sunweb | |
| 10 | Aleksandr Vlasov (Rus) Astana Pro Team |
General Classification
| 1 | Primoz Roglic (Slo) Team Jumbo-Visma | 64:20:31 |
| 2 | Richard Carapaz (Ecu) Ineos Grenadiers | 00:00:45 |
| 3 | Hugh Carthy (GBr) EF Pro Cycling | 00:00:53 |
| 4 | Daniel Martin (Irl) Israel Start-Up Nation | 00:01:48 |
| 5 | Enric Mas Nicolau (Spa) Movistar Team | 00:03:29 |
| 6 | Wout Poels (Ned) Bahrain McLaren | 00:06:21 |
| 7 | Felix Grossschartner (Aut) Bora-Hansgrohe | 00:07:20 |
| 8 | Alejandro Valverde (Spa) Movistar Team | 00:08:45 |
| 9 | Aleksandr Vlasov (Rus) Astana Pro Team | 00:08:54 |
| 10 | David De la Cruz Melgarejo (Spa) UAE Team Emirates | 00:09:29 |
Points
| 1 | Primoz Roglic (Slo) Team Jumbo-Visma | 198 |
| 2 | Richard Carapaz (Ecu) Ineos Grenadiers | 125 |
| 3 | Daniel Martin (Irl) Israel Start-Up Nation | 111 |
| 4 | Hugh Carthy (GBr) EF Pro Cycling | 89 |
| 5 | Guillaume Martin (Fra) Cofidis | 78 |
Mountains
| 1 | Guillaume Martin (Fra) Cofidis | 89 |
| 2 | Tim Wellens (Bel) Lotto Soudal | 34 |
| 3 | Richard Carapaz (Ecu) Ineos Grenadiers | 30 |
| 4 | Sepp Kuss (USA) Team Jumbo-Visma | 27 |
| 5 | Primoz Roglic (Slo) Team Jumbo-Visma | 24 |
Young Riders
| 1 | Enric Mas Nicolau (Spa) Movistar Team | 64:24:00 |
| 2 | Aleksandr Vlasov (Rus) Astana Pro Team | 00:05:25 |
| 3 | David Gaudu (Fra) Groupama-FDJ | 00:07:22 |
| 4 | Georg Zimmermann (Ger) CCC Team | 00:35:40 |
| 5 | William Barta (USA) CCC Team | 00:41:11 |