Surprise at the Vuelta! Kaden Groves beats Wout van Aert in unexpected sprint finish to stage 14

The Vuelta a España keeps delivering surprises. Stage 14 featured a climb of over 20 kilometers right up until the final kilometers but despite the high pace there weren't big gaps and Kaden Groves survived the climb in the peloton; before outsprinting Wout van Aert to his second stage win.

This was a day where most expected a breakaway to succeed. Hence, there was a vicious and very fast fight for the breakaway early in the day; however this ended up not having a positive effect on the formation of the front group as effectively many riders cancelled each other,

Ultimately only six riders managed to be in the head of the race: Jhonatan Narváez, Isaac Del Toro, Victor Campenaerts, Harold Tejada, Marco Frigo and Xandro Meurisse.

The gap never grew much above two minutes on the longest stage of the race. Team Visma | Lease a Bike took over the responsibility of the chase fully and kept the gap small all throughout the afternoon. At the start of the final climb the group split into two; with Narváez, Frigo and Tejada now leading the race. However the gap kept coming down with the Dutch team's work.

Eventually Narváez proved to be the strongest but that was not enough on the day. He was caught with 20 kilometers to go. The peloton was still relatively big at the summit of the final climb with Wout van Aert crossing it first; with a few sprinters still involved in the action. Primoz Roglic punctured in the descent which led to some dramatic moments for BORA, but the Slovenian quickly changed bikes with a teammate and recovered position in the peloton.

A bunch sprint followed with the strongest in the peloton present. Alpecin-Deceuninck managed to do a textbook leadout and after Jasper Philipsen's victory at the Renewi Tour; Kaden Groves launched a late sprint in the slightly uphill ramp to the line and beat Wout van Aert to win once again in this race. Corbin Strong was third on the day, with the GC riders all arriving safe.

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