Due to incidents at the finish line, there was no stage winner on Wednesday and the official times for the general classification were taken three kilometers from the line.
A cosmopolitan hub for culture and a city with a modern and unique identity, Bilbao welcomed the race for the 44th time in history. The first of these visits was recorded at the inaugural edition in 1935, when Gustaaf Deloor was victorious, while the most recent one took place in 2019 and witnessed the win of Philippe Gilbert, who took the win for our team after a breakaway masterclass.
This time, another T-Rex Quick-Step rider was in the spotlight, and his name was Mikel Landa. After getting a hero’s welcome at the start of the day, where hundreds of fans came to see and show their support for him, Landa took off on the steep Alto del Vivere with more than 50 kilometers to go. It was a beautiful trademark attack of the Basque, one that quickly ended up putting some daylight between him and the peloton.
Joined by Santiago Buitrago (Bahrain Victorious), the 35-year-old from Murgia established a gap of more than 40 seconds on the chasers and made the numerous Basque supporters dream in seeing a victory of their favourite, but unfortunately his adventure at the front came to a conclusion in the last 30 kilometers, when they were reeled in.
It was a gutsy attack and ride from Mikel, one that augurs well for the next mountain stages of La Vuelta, where the Basque could be again among the protagonists. His T-Rex Quick-Step teammate Junior Lecerf also had a good day and moved up two positions in the GC, where he remained the team’s highest-ranked rider, in 12th place.
Photo credit: ©Dario Belingheri / Getty Images
