Hat-trick for Kaden Groves at the 2024 Vuelta a Espana after perfectly timed sprint on stage 17

Back in the Green Jersey and back to stage winning ways. Kaden Groves took the third stage win of the 2024 Vuelta a Espana with a perfectly timed sprint on stage 17.

On paper the final opportunity for the sprinters, the lack of potential teams willing to control the peloton meant that a breakaway steal couldn't be completely ruled out. Just four riders got themselves into the early break however, those being Jonas Gregaard, Thibault Guernalec, Thomas Champion and Xabier Isasa.

With Team DSM-Firmenich PostNL (Pavel Bittner), rather than Alpecin-Deceuninck (Kaden Groves), doing much of the controlling in the peloton behind, the breakaway were actually given something of surprisingly large advantage. With all the climbing done for the day and just 45km to go for example, the leading quartet still held a lead of 3:41 over the peloton.

Into the last 25km though, and a notable acceleration from the peloton was causing severe damage to the time gap, now standing at just 1:38. With 15km to go and despite having a teammate in the breakaway which still led the race, Victor Campenaerts launched an attack from the peloton. Ultimately though, the Belgian was not given any leeway.

At 10km to go, the leaders were down to three with Champion dropped, with their lead down to just 34 seconds. With the rain absolutely torrential in Santander for the finale, the conditions were far from ideal. Nevertheless, the brave breakaway were still fighting with all their might. At 2.7km to go though, they were finally caught.

Immediately following the catch however, the counter attacks started up once more, led by Mauro Schmid, Enzo Leijnse and that man Campenaerts again. Through the flamme rouge the leading trio had daylight but once the sprints launched, Kaden Groves in the Green Jersey took the win ahead of Pavel Bittner and Arne Marit.

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