Win number 7 for UAE at La Vuelta - Marc Soler conquers La Farrapona as Vingegaard and Almeida are equally matched

Stage 14 of the Vuelta a Espana was another day in the high mountains, but one without too much action. After João Almeida, Juan Ayuso and Jay Vine, now Marc Soler has managed to take a win for UAE Team Emirates - XRG. In the GC group Jonas Vingegaard defended his race lead as BORA and UAE put pressure.

The stage was quite short with just over 130 kilometers in length, and the fight early on to form a breakaway was quite strong. 24 riders formed the front group, with Victor Campenaerts present for Visma whilst Mikkel Bjerg and Marc Soler were spearheading UAE's block. With the very steep Puerto de San Lorenzo being the penultimate climb of the day, many looked to have men in front for potential tactical purposes.

Quite a lot of men still went through that climb in the head of the race, with James Shaw crossing the line in the head of the race. In the peloton UAE picked up the race, but an all-out attack wasn't yet to happen. The pace of the Juan Ayuso-led peloton saw around 25 riders go through the summit. However Bjerg and a few riders from BORA that were being caught from the breakaway served a great purpose afterwards, as the pace was very high in the false-flat run-up to the climb to La Farrapona, setting up the fatigue.

In front Marc Soler attacked, together with Johannes Staune-Mittet, and with 16 kilometers to go the Spaniard went solo off the front, dropping the Norwegian off his wheel. Despite the hard work from UAE behind it was Soler who aimed to go for the stage win, and the truth is he showed his very best legs, riding to yet another victory for the Emirati team - the seventh stage win of the race and the fourth rider to conquer one.

In the peloton UAE led the group up the first kilometers of the climb, and Giulio Pellizzari took up the pace with 3 kilometers to go for Jai Hindley, but with no attacks until the final kilometer when Jai Hindley picked it up, followed only by Almeida and Vingegaard. In the final sprint Vingegaard beat Almeida in the sprint to extend the race lead by 2 seconds, whilst the other GC men arrived only a few seconds apart behind.