Who would have thought that, at the start of Stage 16 of Vuelta 2019, Jakob Fuglsang still hadn’t won an individual stage in a grand tour!?! Seems absolutely unbelievable, but it was true. However, it’s not true any more. On the second day in the quite simply stunning Asturian mountains, the mist rolled in as the Astana rider made his decisive attack on his fellow breakers with 7km to go. Shrugging off Gianluca Brambilla (Trek) and never letting Tao Geoghegan Hart (Ineos) within 15sec of his back wheel, Fuglsang rode to the summit of the Alto de la Cubilla as the fog got thicker to take his very first individual grand tour stage. There were cheers all round!

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Stage 15 of Vuelta 2019 was the kick-off of the peloton’s two-day romp through the Asturias and while the majority of the race was fairly innocuous, the final climb brought the fireworks. It wasn’t until, well, the final few kilometres that it became clear that the breakaway was going to take the day – but it was touch and go as to who. For awhile it looked like Sergio Samitier (Euskadi–Murias) was going to put up another win on the board for the wild card teams but with 6km to go, Jumbo-Visma’s super-domestique Sepp Kuss left his fellow breakers, caught Samitier, dropped Samitier and rode the double-digit ramps to a fabulous high-fiving win at the summit of Santuario del Acebo.

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