2016 Vuelta a España Stage 2 Results & Recap
Stage 2 of the 2016 Vuelta a España is in the books. The final results and standings are below, followed by our recap of how the race unfolded.
Race Recap
Meersman wins Vuelta's second stage
A rather sleepy opening road stage of the Vuelta a España ended with a frantic bunch sprint finish that featured a couple of crashes and ended with Etixx-QuickStep’s Gianni Meersman proving himself quickest of the pack, ahead of Bora-Argon 18’s Michael Schwarzmann and Magnus Cort of Orica-BikeExchange.
Meersman’s teammates bided their time very well coming into a tricky finish, Yves Lampaert and Zdenek Stybar hitting the front just 500 metres from the line. Sitting on the left-hand side of the road barrelling into the sweeping left-hander up to the finish, they were perfectly placed to set up Meersman, who jumped out of their slipstream and never looked likely to be beaten.
Fourth place went to Sky’s Michal Kwiatkowski, who was rewarded for duking it out with the sprinters by moving into the overall lead as he finished ahead of Sky teammate Pete Kennaugh, with whom he was tied on time following the opening team time trial.
Two riders went down at high speed coming into the finish. Katusha’s Sergey Lagutin crashed with 2.5km left as someone appeared to clip his wheel. The Uzkek remounted and finished under his own steam. Direct Energie’s Ryan Anderson hit the deck heavily on the final bend and lay in the road for some time before being helped over the line on foot by team helpers.
Even though the Vuelta field lacks any of the sport’s major sprint names, this opening road stage was always likely to finish with a bunch gallop with just a single third-category climb on the route at midway. Yet that didn’t prevent the usual group of hopefuls trying their luck with a long-range breakaway.
After a flurry of early attacks, Cesare Benedetti (Bora-Argon 18) and Laurent Pichon (FDJ) managed to get clear after five kilometres and were quickly joined by Brian Naulleau (Direct Energie). Given free rein by the peloton, the three leaders pushed their advantage out to a maximum of 4-20 with 40 kilometres covered.
Sky initially set the pace in the main group in defence of Kennaugh’s red leader’s jersey until Trek-Segafredo and Giant-Alpecin joined them with a view to setting up their sprinters, Niccolò Bonifazio and Nikias Arndt, respectively.
After Pichon had taken the points atop the third-category Alto de Fontefria at the stage’s mid-point to guarantee himself the polka dot jersey on stage three, Sky were once again at the head of the bunch, which was now just 2-35 behind. The peloton continued to reel in the lead trio to the extent that the three leaders almost raised the white flag with 68km left until the group decided that was too soon to make the catch.
What had hitherto been a quiet stage finally came to life when former world champion Philippe Gilbert (BMC) attacked from the peloton on a steep uncategorised climb near Mos with 39km left. The Belgian champion quickly bridged up to the three leaders, giving their venture more impetus.
For the next few kilometres the reinforced group at the head of the race were held at around 30 seconds by the peloton. Gilbert took the three-second bonus at the intermediate sprint with 18km remaining, putting him just four behind Kennaugh on GC as the sprinters’ teams began to mass.
The lead quartet’s escapade ended very soon after, but the constant twists and undulations offered scope for another attack. Katusha’s Tiago Machado was the first to move, accelerating away on a short but sharp climb with 12km left, but his break lasted barely 4km until he was swept up.
After Sky had set the pace to keep their leaders out of trouble, Lotto-Soudal, Giant, Bora and Dimension Data surged to the front to set up their fastmen. The latter looked best placed to do so going into the final kilometre, but it was at this key moment that Etixx made their move. Lampaert and Stybar provided the launchpad, and Meersman the blistering finish.
Get our full coverage of the Vuelta a España and every race we cover with our mobile app! The apps have over 100 additional exclusive features, including our award-winning Time Machine feature that lets you pause/rewind/replay the entire app to sync with delayed race video, integrated Fantasy Cycling, push notifications, an integrated news feed, live GPS tracking, world-class commentary, and our animated interactive maps and profiles.
