The German Lennard Kämna (Bora Hansgrohe) won the ninth stage of the Tour of Spain alone, held today between Cartagena and Collado de la Cruz de Caravaca, 184.5 km long, in which the American kept the red jersey of the leader Sepp Kuss (Jumbo Visma) ahead of the Spanish Marc Soler. Due to bad weather conditions (there were a couple of bad corners) the times were taken 2.6 kilometers from the finish line. Among the great favorites, the Slovenian Primo Roglicz attacked at the end and managed to scratch two seconds from the rest of the favourites.
The winner, yes, was decided at the finish line, where the strongest of the breakaway of the day was Kämna, with a time of 4h.34.03, followed 30 seconds behind by the Italian Matteo Sobrero (Jayco). Tomorrow, Monday, La Vuelta will enjoy the first day of rest and the peloton will travel by plane to Valladolid, where the activity returns on Tuesday with a 25.8-kilometre time trial.
The stage was nervous from the start because of the fans. Luckily for Movistar and UAE, who were cut off, the group regrouped minutes later. At the moment of truth, the good escape formed by eight men, among which three Spaniards stood out: Navarro, Barrenetxea and Rubén Fernández. Kämna, Caicedo, Hamilton, Sobrero and Gehbreigzabhier were the men who completed that convoy of fugitives, who came to have just over five minutes ahead of the peloton.
With ten kilometers left to go, Navarro punctured. In the last five kilometers the fog had already disappeared and the asphalt was dry. He attacked Roglic from behind and ended up gaining two seconds on the rest of the favorites. Ahead, Kämna took a somewhat weak victory, but for the German it meant the triplet because he had already won in the Giro and the Tour before. Kuss kept the red with 43 seconds over Marc Soler and 1.03 over Lenny Martínez.
In the noble zone, Evenepoel is fourth, 5 seconds ahead of Mikel Landa and Roglic, while Vingegaard and Enric Mas are 11 seconds away and Juan Ayuso 21. The candidates will face the Valladolid time trial this Tuesday with minimal differences.
The image of the day was seeing the runners pedaling the last two thousand meters at the pace of a cyclist, talking to each other and laughing at the finish line, something that the fans gathered at the Collado de la Cruz in Caravaca, a port, did not like. second. They never imagined an end to the stage like this.
