Norway takes the mountain
Andreas Leknessund went with 7.5 kilometres to go and nobody saw him again. The Uno-X Mobility rider crossed the line alone at Aramon Valdelinares this afternoon in 3:49:47, collecting the first Grand Tour stage win of a career that had produced plenty of near misses and no reward.
His teammate finished the job behind him. Tobias Halland Johannessen sat on Wout van Aert while the Belgian burned himself chasing, then jumped inside the final kilometre to take second, 34 seconds down. Van Aert came home third at 47 seconds after a day that began with him attacking straight off the flag.
Stage 7 ran 149.8 kilometres from Vall d’Alba to Aramon Valdelinares. Five riders shaped it: Van Aert, Leknessund, Johannessen, Eddie Dunbar and Alexey Lutsenko. The chase group behind had numbers and no agreement, which usually amounts to the same thing as having nothing.
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Two riders, one plan
Van Aert did the work all day. He took the intermediate sprint with 26.5 kilometres left for 20 points and six bonus seconds, then led the group over the Puerto de San Rafael for maximum mountain points. By the time the road tilted up for the last time, he had nothing left to spend.
The final climb measured 9.8 kilometres at 5.9 per cent with ramps touching 13. Leknessund attacked once and the trap closed on Van Aert immediately. Chase, and Johannessen gets a free ride. Wait, and Leknessund disappears up the road. Lutsenko helped for a while before cracking. Dunbar went out the back.
Jakob Omrzel took fourth at 58 seconds for Bahrain Victorious and Juan Felipe Rodriguez Contreras was fifth at 1:13. Ivan Sosa followed at 1:16, with Lutsenko seventh at 1:44 and Dunbar eighth at 1:51. For Uno-X Mobility it is a first stage win at the Vuelta, and it arrived with a one-two on a summit finish.
Pogacar keeps taking seconds
The red jersey did not need this stage and took time anyway. Tadej Pogacar finished 19th, 4:23 behind, after answering Felix Gall’s move on the lower slopes and then going himself. He leads Enric Mas by 3:50, with Primoz Roglic third at 4:50. UAE Team Emirates-XRG let the break go this time after Pogacar’s 50-kilometre solo win in Andorra and his gravel-stage victory over Mas at Castello, and the race was better for it.
Richard Carapaz paid the price. The EF Education-EasyPost rider conceded 1:22 to Pogacar on the climb and slid from fourth to seventh overall, now 6:12 down. Sepp Kuss moved up to fifth at 6:05 and Oscar Onley sits sixth at 6:06, one second behind him. Gall is fourth, 11 seconds off Roglic and the podium.
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