Vuelta a España stage 7: Michael Storer attacks summit finish to score first WorldTour win

Michael Storer (Team DSM) won stage 7 of the 2021 Vuelta a España, on a day that saw the abandonment of GC stars Alejandro Valverde (Movistar Team) and Hugh Carthy (EF Education-Nippo).

“This is just the beginning. I don’t know what I’m capable of in the future. This was my next goal, to win a race at the WorldTour level, so I’m really happy. I’m going to have to set a new goal now,” Storer said after the stage win.

Storer was very aggressive at the front of the race — ultimately winning the stage combativity award — and while the riders with him changed the lead several times, Storer managed to ride them off his wheels on the narrow and very steep final 2km.

Also read: Vuelta a España: Hugh Carthy, Alejandro Valverde abandon on stage 7

How it happened

The 152km stage from Gandia to Balcón de Alicante had a route profile that looked like the blade of a handsaw and looked to be perfect on paper for a breakaway to succeed.

And so the breakaway for the stage consisted of Storer, Thymen Arensman, Chris Hamilton (all Team DSM), Geoffrey Bouchard (AG2R-Citroën), Diegeo Camargo (EF Education-Nippo), and Harm Vanhoucke (Lotto-Soudal) had 2:26 at 92km to go.

A chase group of two dozen, with the red jersey, the green jersey, and the white jersey were behind.

Former race leader Kenny Elissonde (Trek-Segafredo) weaved side to side on the road trying to shake Romain Bardet (Team DSM) from his wheel and scoop up maximum KOM points. But Bardet held fast, and was able to summit first inside of 90km to go.

As the route traversed several smaller climbs, American Sepp Kuss (Jumbo-Visma) suffered a mechanical at 47km to go, dropping him from the leading group as the front of the race accelerated. Kuss was quickly back on his bike, but this brief stop dropped him from contention for winning the stage.

Behind Kuss, Hugh Carthy (EF Education-Nippo) abandoned the race, and shortly after this Alejandro Valverde was also forced to withdraw, after crashing on a high-speed descent, nearly falling into a ravine.

Up the road, Lawson Craddock (EF Education-Nippo) had escaped and put half a minute into the group behind him at 30km to go.

Race-leader Roglič lost time to the new virtual race leader Jan Polanc (Team DSM), with Craddock, Pavel Sivakov (Ineos Grenadiers), and Michael Storer (Team DSM) nearly five minutes up the road, battling for KOM points, a chance at stage glory, and even the possible overall race lead.

Sivakov attacked at the small climb in a town at 19km to go and Craddock and Storer were quick to respond, while the group chasing after these three on the front managed to keep the gap at half a minute, despite the change in pace.

Jumbo Visma continued to escort the race-leader at the front of the main group, closely followed by Movistar Team and Astana-Premier Tech.

At an inopportune time, Sivakov suffered a mechanical and got off his bike at 16km to go, and was temporarily distanced from Craddock and Storer.

Storer accelerated and dropped Craddock on the penultimate ascent, a cat 3 climb, giving Sivakov an opportunity to reconnect with the EF Education-Nippo rider, while the two were some 35 seconds ahead of their pursuers

As the race approached the final climb — which had three sections with the final part of the ascent, at 4km to go, pitched over 10 percent grade — the gap between the front and the red jersey group hovered at around five minutes.

Sepp Kuss launched an attack at the run-in to the final climb to try to bridge to Craddock’s group just after 9km to go.

Into the final 5km, at the intermediate section of the final climb, the groups on the front came together, with Carlos Verona (Movistar) doing a lot of the work to get to the finish line first. This move proved to be his undoing, as he later paid for the sustained acceleration.

The roads in the final 4km were barely one car wide and steep. This allowed the red jersey group to lop off a minute, but were still 4:15 back of the lead group.

Großschartner lead the chase as the best placed on the GC ahead of Roglič, hoping to get distance between the Slovenian and close down the gap to the front.

Verona attacked again at 3.5km to go but was soon overhauled by Storer who appeared to have fresher legs, distancing the fading Sivakov who was “pedaling squares” on the steep final 2km.

In the red jersey group, Adam Yates (Ineos Grenadiers) attacked the bunch, with teammate Bernal sitting on, while Roglič let the Ineos rider do the work.

Storer held Verona for the stage win, while behind Sivakov rode into the remaining stage podium position.

What’s to come

Following the climbing on stage 7 is a relatively flat stage 8, 173.7km from Santa Pola to La Manga del Mar Menor.

The parcours includes a few climbs mid-stage, but the majority of the 174km route, from Santa Pola to La Manga del Mar Menor, which travels along the Mediterranean is mostly flat to the delight of the sprinters, and also the GC riders looking to recover from the climbing on the previous stage.