British cyclist Simon Yates won the first Grand Tour event of his career when he clinched the three-week La Vuelta a Espana. The win was also the first for his Australian-based team Mitchelton-Scott and Yates was the third rider from the UK to clinch a Grand Tour event in 2018, joining Chris Froome who was successful in the Giro d’Italia and Tour de France winner Geraint Thomas.
Last year, the race had been dominated by favourite Froome, who arrived in Spain following his fourth Tour de France, but after winning three out of four of the previous Grand Tour events, Froome opted to sit out the Vuelta, which left the 2018 contest wide open.
Four former winners of the event were among the favourites. Nairo Quintana and Alejandro Valverde from the Movistar Team were joined by Vincenzo Nibali of Bahrain-Merida and Fabio Aru. Richie Porte of BMC Racing Team was the forecasted winner, having won the Tour De Suisse and finished third in the Tour De Romandie. He had also been riding well in the Tour De France before crashing out in the ninth stage. But Yates was also prominent in the betting after a strong effort in the Giro d’Italia earlier during the year when he led the event going into the 19th Stage.
Yates has often struggled in time trials during stage races, but he performed solidly in the opening time trial of La Vuelta and although he dropped a few seconds on Stage Two, he signalled his intent in Stage Four – the first of the mountain stages – finishing eighth in the climb to the summit of the Puerto de Alfacar, which lifted him up the leaderboard to third.
After losing some ground to Valverde on Stage Eight, Yates claimed the red jersey on Stage Nine thanks to a breakaway win by Ben King, and he held it for most of the rest of La Vuelta, dropping out of top spot briefly after Stage 12, but reclaiming it with a stirring climb up La Camperona to win Stage 14, which enabled him to open up a healthy 20 second lead over Valverde.
There were still obstacles to overcome for Yates, including another time trial in Stage 16, but Yates excelled, extending his lead by seven seconds, and he established a dominant lead on Stage 19 when he attacked on the last climb of the stage to finish ahead of Valverde by more than a minute.
Victory was sealed in the penultimate stage of the race, which included six categorised climbs and a total ascent distance of 4,000 metres over the 97.5 km. Miguel Angel Lopez and 2016 Vuelta champion Quintana both attacked before the summit of Coll de la Comella, but Yates chose his moment to fight back, and as Quintana dropped back through the field, Yates was able to coast home in third to record a famous win, the fifth Grand Tour event in a row to be won by a UK rider.
