"A great day, a great memory" - Egan Bernal takes his maiden Vuelta a Espana victory amidst Galicia chaos

Egan Bernal has just taken his first win, excluding national championships, since the 2021 Giro d'Italia. The Colombian has shown good form throughout the last few days at the Vuelta a Espana and was part of today's breakaway on a hilly day in the Galician hills. There, the INEOS Grenadiers rider took his first Vuelta victory, sprinting to the win on an last-minute improvised finish line at the bottom of the climb he prepared to ride up all day long.

"After I dropped out of the general classification, I really wanted to take a win," Bernal said in a post-race interview, shared by INEOS' social media team. "I wanted to win in my national champion's jersey, which means a lot to me. Apart from the final climb not happening, it was a great stage. It was incredibly tough. It was full throttle all day."

Bernal was part of a group of over a dozen riders that set off early in the day and would go on to fight for the stage win as a depleted Team Visma | Lease a Bike did not want to chase, and no-one else took responsibility in the peloton until the penultimate climb. The gap was too big to close, but there was action early on in the front group with the strongest climbers going up the road. Bernal, Mikel Landa and Clément Braz Afonso went through the Alto de Prado in front in the final kilometers, and then as the descent began, Afonso punctured and the news that the final had been neutralized arrived. The organization quickly created a new finish line and moved the timers, the premature finish also saw Bernal gain significant time on the GC men and re-enter the GC fight.

And in an unusual sprint, Bernal then beat Mikel Landa to victory in an isolated area on the bottom of the final climb, a strange location for his first win at the Spanish Grand Tour. "The partnership with Landa was fantastic. When we knew the finish line would be eight kilometers earlier, we thought: okay, let's sprint. It was a great day, a great memory," he concluded.