Wow! I bet no one was expecting UAE Team Emirate’s Marc Soler to grab victory on stage 5 of La Vuelta a Espana. To be honest, I’m still not sure I can explain it! In true Soler style, the mercurial Spaniard chased like crazy to get into the break, got dropped in a finale backloaded with climbs, somehow made it back, shot off the front solo on the Alto del Vivero, held his advantage on the descent and sailed over the line, arms aloft with four seconds to spare on his chasers. With Jumbo-Visma happy to let the race lead go to someone in the break-of-the-day, Rudy Molard (Groupama-FDJ) played his cards – and Fred Wright (Bahrain-Victorious) – perfectly to move into the red jersey for the second time in his career.
