Wout van Aert into the Red Jersey at 2024 Vuelta a Espana despite Kaden Groves denying Belgian the stage 2 win

One of the rare sprint opportunities at the 2024 Vuelta a Espana, last year's Green Jersey winner Kaden Groves secured a brilliant win, as Wout van Aert secured the bonus seconds required to move into the Red Jersey.

A sprint day perhaps, but by no means a flat stage. Given the little opportunites for the fastmen however, there was little interest in getting into the breakaway. In the end, just two riders make the early attacks, those being Luis Angel Mate (Euskaltel - Euskadi) and compatriot Ibon Ruiz (Equipo Kern Pharma).

As expected, the teams of Wout van Aert (Team Visma | Lease a Bike) and Kaden Groves (Alpecin-Deceuninck) were doing most of the work on the front of the peloton to manage the time gap and ensure the expected bunch sprint finale came to fruition.

In a blow for Team Visma | Lease a Bike's chasing efforts however, Dylan van Baarle hit the deck hard in an innocuous crash through a feed zone. Whilst it might have happened at slow speed, the damage was definitely felt by the former Dutch national champion, who took some considerable time to get back onto his bike.

In a potential prelude to the final sprint, Kaden Groves led home the peloton for 3rd place at the intermediate sprint, ahead of Wout van Aert with just over 50km to go. Sadly for the breakaway though, the acceleration of the peloton in anticipation for the intermediate sprint meant it was curtains for their escapade up the road and with 52km to go, things were all back together in the peloton.

It took a little while, but with around 30km to go, the attacks started back again, firstly through Mauri Vansevenant. Despite the burst of excitement however, no gaps really materialised and things were quickly all back together again in the peloton. On the final climb of the day, the fans had come out in their numbers. Sadly though, there were a couple of incidents of fans getting too close to the riders with even 2nd overall Mathias Vacek being brought down.

With things staying locked together from there on, all the GC guys got safely through the haven of the 4km to go banner. With 2km to go though, there was a crash in the peloton with Jhonatan Narvaez and Joshua Tarling among others being brought down. In the fight for the win however, Wout van Aert opened things up but it was Kaden Groves who fired the victory ahead of a quickly closing Corbin Strong.

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