Lennard Kämna Completes Grand Tour Treble With Vuelta Stage 9 Win
Lennard Kämna Completes Grand Tour Treble With Vuelta Stage 9 Win
Lennard Kämna completed a trilogy of Grand Tour stage wins in a breakaway victory, as he took the ninth stage of the 2023 Vuelta a España on Sunday.
![Lennard Kämna Completes Grand Tour Treble With Vuelta Stage 9 Win](https://d2779tscntxxsw.cloudfront.net/64f4b54015404.png?width=1200&quality=80)
Lennard Kämna completed a trilogy of Grand Tour stage wins in a breakaway victory, as he took the ninth stage of the 2023 Vuelta a España on Sunday.
The German rider for Bora-Hansgrohe was strongest on the summit finish and added a Vuelta triumph to stage wins in the 2020 Tour de France and 2022 Giro d'Italia.
Bad conditions at the end of the race led organizers to take general classification times 2.05 kilometers from the finish, and Primoz Roglic burst through, snatching a couple of seconds on reigning champion Remco Evenepoel and teammate Jonas Vingegaard.
Belgian rider Evenepoel could not stay with him, meaning it was a good end to the first full week of the race for Slovenian Roglic, who won Stage 8 on Saturday.
His Jumbo-Visma team enjoyed a super Saturday with the three-time Vuelta winner's victory, while Sepp Kuss took the red jersey, and the American held on to it Sunday in a wind-battered run.
"It was a nervous day, super windy, but I came through really well," Kuss said. "It was really slippery and really muddy, so I think they made a good decision (to take early times)."
The Dutch team set the pace at the start of Stage 9, 184.5 kilometers between Cartagena and Collado de la Cruz, breaking away with seven of their eight riders, while Soudal-QuickStep's Evenepoel and a few others stuck with them.
The peloton caught them, before a new attack sprang, not featuring any of the main general classification contenders.
The break, featuring Kämna, created a gap, which at one point, stretched over eight minutes on the peloton, which split in a wind-hit section.
Lenny Martinez and Wout Poels, who started the stage in the general classification top 10, were caught in the back split, behind over 20 riders in the front split.
Eventually, the chase group caught up, and the peloton re-formed with around 50 kilometers to go, reeling in the break to around four minutes.
However, they refused to be caught and swelled the gap to over five minutes entering the final 15 kilometers, approaching the Category 2 summit finish of Alto Caravaca de la Cruz.
Kämna kicked on with Matteo Sobrero in pursuit, dropping the rest of the break, but the German held him off with ease.
"I'm super happy about it, I've worked really hard the last couple of months," Kämna said. "I tried to make it through the echelons as quickly as possible without spending too much energy. At the end, it was tricky with the climb always going up and down."
Monday is a rest day, with the race resuming Tuesday for Stage 10, a 25-kilometer individual time trial in Valladolid.
This is the 78th edition of the Vuelta, which ends in Madrid on Sept. 17 after 21 stages and 3,153.8 kilometers.
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