La Vuelta – Marc Soler wins the 5th stage of the Tour of Spain, Rudy Molard new red jersey

Four years later, Rudy Molard is back in red! In Bilbao, the French puncher from the Groupama-FDJ team took advantage of his presence in the breakaway to steal the leader’s tunic from Primoz Roglic, who stayed warm in an apathetic peloton on Wednesday. Like a wink, the Rhodanien takes the red jersey at the end of the 5th stage, as during the Vuelta 2018, where he then stayed four days in red. The adopted Azurean finished 4th in the day’s stage, won by Marc Soler with a 4-second lead over Daryl Impey (Israel-Premier Tech) and Fred Wright (Bahrain-Victorious). It was played with few things between Molard and Wright. Two seconds separate them overall. Either the two seconds of bonuses taken by the Frenchman at the top of the last ascent.

The second day on Basque soil started off on disheveled foundations (50 km/h on average in the first hour) and it was not until km 74 that the right move finally took shape. Eighteen riders made it up, once the junction was made by Marc Soler, who stopped alone for two minutes to return to the second climb of the day, the Balcon de Bizkaia. As some had anticipated, Roglic (Jumbo-Visma) did not really want to keep his red jersey taken the day before. His team therefore let the breakaway go, which was five minutes ahead of the last ascent, the Alto del Vivero (4.7km at 7.8%), crossed for the first time 30 kilometers earlier.

Jake Stewart, Molard’s British teammate, did the job by attacking the climb 40” ahead of the rest of the breakaway. But Soler found the opening halfway up and climbed to the top, located 14km from the goal, 1” ahead of a small group led by Molard ahead of the Monegasque Victor Langellotti (Burgos-BH), the Kazakhstani Vadim Pronskiy (Astana) and Wright, the only one who can threaten the red jersey coveted by Molard, 20th overall 5” from Roglic before the start of the 5th stage. The Frenchman had only ”a margin over the Briton. A gap that went to ” at the Alto del Vivero, where Molard took two seconds of particularly valuable bonuses by moving into 2nd position.

Soler, two years later

Impey and others made the connection in the first part of the descent. But Soler resisted until the end to win his second victory on the roads of the Vuelta, two years after the first. This is the first grand tour victory for a Spaniard since the success of Ion Izagirre on the 6th stage of the Tour of Spain 2020.

Molard played well by staying in the wake of Wright, who needed to finish in the top two to hope to get ahead of the Frenchman overall. The Briton was almost rewarded for his efforts but Impey overtook him on the line, for 2nd place.

Four minutes of margin on Roglic

Molard thus returns to full light, at almost 33 years old, by finding this red tunic, four years later. Overall, he is 2” ahead of Wright, 1’09” over Nikias Arndt (DSM), 2’27” over Lawson Craddock (BikeExchange-Jayco) and above all 4’09” over Primoz Roglic. What to see a little come before the first arrival at the top of this Vuelta, Thursday at Pico Jano (12.5km at 6.6%).