Chapter 455 - 216: Casually Taking the 5th Win! (Part 2)

When Director Xiao made this comment, the fans back home watching the live broadcast immediately breathed a sigh of relief.

Of course, they all wanted Huang Chong to win several more stages in the Vuelta a Espa?a.

Some fans even wished Huang Chong could sweep the stage wins for today and the two remaining stages. That way, he would surpass Poga?ar, who had impressively claimed six victories in this year’s Giro d’Italia, for the most wins in a single Grand Tour.

What would seven victories mean?

It would mean a rider had truly claimed one-third of all the stage wins in a Grand Tour.

In fact, Huang Chong was in excellent form today.

After the system had optimized his body to its absolute peak, his ability to recover from fatigue was already far greater than anyone else’s.

The other team leaders weren’t even exhausted to the point of being unable to pedal, so how could he possibly be the first to crack?

He hadn’t even used a special recovery Energy Gel to fight off fatigue. This alone was enough to prove that his earlier answers to the reporters had been nothing but polite formalities.

The Red Bull Bora Team’s strategy today was just as they’d stated in the pre-race press conference—they were playing with their cards face up.

They controlled the peloton for the entire race with an exceptionally clear objective: help Huang Chong fight for more stage victories.

At this point in the race, no team was willing to let a breakaway succeed.

Besides, Grand Tour organizers, whether for the Tour de France or the Vuelta a Espa?a, tend to design the final stages with mountaintop finishes and ITTs. This is done specifically to prepare a spectacular stage for the GC contenders to launch their attacks.

On the flat sections, Denz and Gampa were the first to take charge of the pacemaking.

Although Gampa was set to transfer to the Jieke Team for the 2025 season, his ability to control the pace on the flat stages of this Vuelta a Espa?a had been truly outstanding.

So, while a five-man breakaway had managed to build a lead of about five minutes in the first half of the stage, Gampa’s pace-setting made a huge difference. By the time the peloton passed the Third Category Climb at the 94.5 km mark, he had already shrunk the gap to the breakaway to around three minutes.

Then, as the peloton descended, the two flat-terrain domestiques from the Bora Team continued to chip away at the time gap to the breakaway.

With about 10 km to go before the final climb, the gap to the five-man breakaway had shrunk to a mere thirty seconds. The group consisted of Del Toro from the UAE Team, Simone Perilli and Victor Bulat from the Wanty Team, Fran Miholjevi? from the Bahrain Victory Team, and Edward Planckaert from the Alpecin Team.

With a gap that small, they could clearly see the breakaway group just up the road on the flat section.

But even on the verge of being caught, the riders who had been desperately trying to stay away all day continued to struggle, each hoping to be the last one swallowed up by the peloton.

Some might wonder: knowing they couldn’t get away and that the peloton was in hot pursuit, why did they continue to push on?

Why not just give up, rejoin the peloton, and save some energy for the final mountain climb—

In reality, it all came down to the "Most Combative Rider" award for the stage.

The combativity award is almost exclusively given to riders in the breakaway.

Although the race jury often prioritizes riders from the host nation, if no local riders are in the breakaway, they will look at who was most aggressive and who was the last to be caught by the peloton before deciding the winner.

This award comes not only with prize money but is also an honor that can be won without taking the stage victory.

That was why the Bahrain Victorious rider at the front, Miholjevi?, dropped his four companions. He forged on alone for several hundred meters into the final climb before finally being caught by Adrià, the Red Bull Bora domestique who had moved to the front of the peloton to take control.

At that moment, as the last man to be caught, Miholjevi? had no regrets.

He knew all along that he couldn’t win the stage from the breakaway, and that hadn’t been his goal. He would be more than content with taking the combativity award.

However, for the other GC contenders, the real battle was just beginning as they officially started the climb up Moncalvillo Heights.

To be honest, watching the Red Bull Bora Team advance up the pine-lined mountain road with a full four climbing domestiques leading Huang Chong, rivals like O’Connor, Mas, and Carapaz could only feel a deep sense of despair.

At the Tour of Spain, a Red Bull Bora Team unleashing its full power in the final stages was just like the UAE Team at the Tour de France.

When they no longer needed to conserve energy and could attack with unbridled force on the steep slopes, their terrifying pace would instantly drop nearly all the domestiques from teams like Decathlon, Movistar Team, EF Education, and even Ineos and Vismar.

After catching the last breakaway rider, Adrià pulled the group through the first, least difficult kilometer of the Moncalvillo Heights climb. Then, he handed over the pacemaking duties to his teammate, Giovanni Aleotti.

At that point, they were about 7.4 km from the summit finish.

However, once Aleotti took the lead, he was even more ferocious than Adrià, riding out of the saddle and pushing the pace the entire time.

He was clearly planning to burn himself out completely in order to wear down the leaders of the other teams as much as possible.

Steve, the commentator for European Sports, could only sigh with emotion as he watched the scene unfold: