Wout van Aert maintains points and KOM lead after Cuitu Negru showdown - "But today I certainly didn't feel like a good climber"

Wout van Aert is on great form at this Vuelta a España and he is showing it by making a double trip to the podium after stage 15. Although he aims for stage wins and the green jersey, the Belgian is actually taking on a side quest as he leads on the KOM classification into the final week of the race.

"It's nice to wear the mountain jersey after this tough mountain stage, but today I certainly didn't feel like a good climber," van Aert said in a post-race interview this afternoon. "It's a bit of a surprise that I still have the polka dot jersey. I thought [Jay] Vine would take all the points, but it's a good feeling to enter the second rest day with two jerseys."

Jay Vine today pushed the pace for Pavel Sivakov to enter the Top10, and that gave van Aert some buffer to keep the jersey that he wasn't even planning on fighting for until a few days ago. Van Aert was in the breakaway but did not have the legs to match the climbers on the day's toughest ascents; but he reached the finish with 46 points - the same as the Australian. With breakaway and GC riders splitting the points throughout the many mountainous days, the Team Visma | Lease a Bike rider maintains a lead over both jerseys.

"We'll see what's possible in the final week. It was a very uncontrollable stage and to be honest I didn’t have the legs I wanted. Quite early in the stage I had to decide to take it a bit easier, and then I finished in a nice group. But with these climbs it’s never easy, so it was still a tough day," he concluded. Next week with three high-mountain stages, it will be hard but possible to keep the jersey on his shoulders - although he is racing around in green.