Vuelta a Espana: Belgium’s Remco Evenepoel seals maiden Grand Tour win

From left, Richard Carapaz in polka dot mountain jersey, Juan Ayuso Pesquera in white jersey as best young rider, overall winner Remco Evenepoel and green jersey winner Mads Pedersen

Remco Evenepoel safely came through the final stage in Madrid to seal overall victory in the Vuelta a Espana.

The 22-year-old Quick-Step Alpha Vinyl rider became the first Belgian to win a Grand Tour in 44 years.

Colombia’s Juan Sebastian Molano won a thrilling sprint finish in the 21st and final stage – a ceremonial 97km run into the Spanish capital.

Tao Geoghegan Hart was the best-placed Briton in the general classification (GC), finishing 19th.

Fellow Briton Simon Yates, one of 49 withdrawals during the three-week race, had been running fifth in the GC standings when he was forced to pull out after stage 10 following a positive test for Covid-19.

Evenepoel finished two minutes five seconds ahead of Spain’s Enric Mas, who moved up into second place in the overall standings after Slovenia’s defending champion Primoz Roglic withdrew following a crash at the end of stage 16.

Roglic, 32, was second at the time of his withdrawal, only one minute and 26 seconds behind, and was pushing for a fourth consecutive title.

“I don’t know what’s going through my head and my body right now. It’s amazing,” said Evenepoel, after holding off a challenge from Mas in the penultimate stage to all but seal victory in only his second Grand Tour.

Evenepoel had suffered a broken pelvis in a crash at the 2020 Il Lombardia and then crashed out of his first Grand Tour – last year’s Giro d’Italia – on his return to cycling.

His performance at the Giro raised doubts whether he was able to challenge at elite level and become the first Belgian to win a Grand Tour since Johan de Muynck took the Giro title in 1978.

But Evenepoel bounced back to win this year’s Liege-Bastogne-Liege, his first victory in one of the five ‘Monument’ classic one-day races, and underpinned his potential with two stage victories at the Vuelta.

He added: “It really sinks in now. Yesterday the emotions were quite high, but you still have to finish the race.

“It’s history for the team, for my country and for myself. I think we can be really proud for what we have done over these last three weeks.”

Denmark’s Mads Pedersen won the green jersey by 223 points, with Britain’s Fred Wright second in the points classification. Ecuador’s Richard Carapaz of Team Ineos Grenadiers won the polka dot jersey as the king of the mountains.

Spain’s Alejandro Valverde, 42, who won the Vuelta in 2009 and the 2018 world road race title, signalled he would retire at the end of the season, calling time on a 20-year career as a professional.

Dutch rider Annemiek van Vleuten won the women’s Ceratizit Challenge to complete a historic hat-trick following victories in the women’s Giro d’Italia Donne and the Tour de France Femmes.

The 39-year-old’s victory was built on a superb performance on the second stage to Colindres, when she overhauled a 25-second deficit from the opening team time trial to construct a lead approaching two minutes which she defended to Madrid.

The Spanish race will become the third Grand Tour for professional women next year, renamed La Vuelta Femenina and staged over seven days in May.