Pablo Castrillo takes biggest win of his career on stage 12 of the Vuelta a Espana 2024 with stunning final climb

Another day has gone to the breakaway at the 2024 Vuelta a Espana as Pablo Castrillo of Equipo Kern Pharma took a brilliant summit finish win on stage 12, the biggest success of his career to date ahead of Max Poole

With this stage all about the final climb, their was another intense fight to get into the breakaway and get up the road early. In the end, 10 riders got themselves up the road including the likes of Marc Soler, Jhonatan Narvaez, Mauri Vansevenant, Louis Meintjes and Max Poole among others.

By the time the lead group reached the 50km go mark, their advantage over the peloton had extended up to the massive gap of 9:51, meaning that in all likelihood it would be them who were battling it out for the stage win at the top of the final climb. Despite the blistering start to the day, much of the stage had been raced relatively calmly. With two battles now expected on the final climb, many riders would've more than likely been fancying their chances.

On the lower slopes of the finale, the attacks began almost immediately in the break with Lidl-Trek's Carlos Verona the first to get a gap. Once he was caught, Equipo Kern Pharma's Pablo Castrillo immediately countered as the rest looked at each other, the young Spaniard rode clear.

With 4km to go, Castillo had more than 30 seconds on the main chase group, although Mauro Schmid, Narvaez, Soler and Poole were somewhere in between and riding hard. The cooperation was not great in the chasers however, meaning the advantage was fully with Castrillo.

Through the flamme rouge, his advantage was 29 seconds and from there, there was no catching him with Castrillo taking the biggest win of his career ahead of Max Poole and Marc Soler.