Eddie Dunbar takes stage 11 of 2024 Vuelta a Espana from breakaway as Roglic distances O'Connor on dramatic day

Ireland's Eddie Dunbar has taken the first Grand Tour stage win of his career on stage 11 of the 2024 Vuelta a Espana after a dramatic day that saw GC time gaps after a late attack by Primoz Roglic.

After another intense fight for the breakaway to open the stage, a massive group of 39 riders got themselves up the road. Notable names included the likes of Guillaume Martin, Eddie Dunbar, Brandon McNulty, Steven Kruijswijk, Jhonatan Narvaez, Daniel Martinez, Matthew Riccitello, Victor Campenaerts and Max Poole. Best placed GC wise however, was Israel - Premier Tech's George Bennett, who started the day 9:50 down on race leader Ben O'Connor.

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Xandro Meurisse didn't wait around long in the break however, attacking solo to form the break of the break and with 70km to go, those with stage win hopes in the breakaway were setting their teammates to work and reel back in the Belgian who had built up an advantage of over a minute on them and over 6 minutes on the peloton.

With 50km to go, Meurisse was still comfortably clear by over a minute, despite the Israel - Premier Tech led chase group beginning to up the pace behind. Due to the accelerations in the fight for the stage win however, the Red Jersey group was now nearly 7 minutes down. Despite his epic efforts however, at just over 30km to go, Meurisse was swallowed up by the chase group. 

As the leaded entered the final climb of the day, Victor Campenaerts went on the attack again and ripped apart the breakaway heading into the final 10 kilometres. It wasn't the Belgian who led the race over the climb however, with that honour going to Urko Berrade, Filippo Zana and Carlos Verona. In the peloton meanwhile, Primoz Roglic launched an attack, with only Enric Mas able to follow and Ben O'Connor distanced. 

As Roglic linked up with Dani Martinez, who had dropped back from the break things were looking very good for the Slovenian. In the fight for the stage win however, Eddie Dunbar took a flier in the final kilometre and they could not catch him with the Irishman taking the stage win.

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