{"id":2068,"date":"2024-09-06T09:11:50","date_gmt":"2024-09-06T03:26:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/8850media.com\/blog\/"},"modified":"2024-09-06T13:14:09","modified_gmt":"2024-09-06T07:29:09","slug":"berrade-wins-vuelta-stage-as-oconnor-retains-lead","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/8850media.com\/np\/news\/berrade-wins-vuelta-stage-as-oconnor-retains-lead\/","title":{"rendered":"Berrade takes 18th stage as O’Connor holds on to narrow Vuelta lead over Roglic"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

VITORIA-GASTEIZ, Spain:<\/strong> Urko Berrade made a late move to escape the breakaway group and win the 18th stage of the Spanish Vuelta on Thursday, with Ben O’Connor holding on to a five-second lead over three-time champion Primoz Roglic.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It was the third stage win for team Kern Pharma, whose founder \u2014 Manolo Azcona \u2014 passed away last week. Pablo Castrillo, another Spaniard, had won twice following Azcona’s death.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Spanish riders have won four Vuelta stages so far, their best tally since 2019.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWithout a doubt, it\u2019s a dream,” Berrade said. \u201cThe stage closer to home, with all my family watching me, friends, in the last stages of La Vuelta… When there are so few opportunities left it seemed complicated to get a stage. I\u2019ve been close in others, but it\u2019s incredible. At the end, that last climb, with everyone pretty cooked, they told me: \u2018You all have a chance, try it.\u2019 I tried from there, almost without looking back, I tried not to look back. I didn\u2019t see myself as the winner until I crossed the finish line.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Berrade made his move to the front with about five kilometres to go in the 179.5-km mid-mountain stage through Basque Country roads.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

O\u2019Connor and Roglic finished together again, and the gap between the two remained at five seconds entering the decisive stages and the weekend finish in Madrid. Enric Mas was also in contention, 1 minute, 25 seconds off the lead.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt wasn\u2019t an easy stage at all, to be honest. There are no easy days this year,\u201d said O’Connor, an Australian. “But somehow, I\u2019m still managing to crack out some pretty good numbers, so I don\u2019t think it makes any difference now. And I\u2019m still in the lead. It\u2019s nice to have it for another day. I don\u2019t know if it\u2019s 13 or 14 days, a long time. I\u2019ve loved it and I enjoyed it a lot.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On Friday, riders will face a 173.5-km route that includes a challenging climb of nearly 10 km. (AP)<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Related Images:<\/h3>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It is the fourth stage win for the Spanish riders in the Vuelta this year, with Pablo Castrillo securing two of them.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2075,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"advgb_blocks_editor_width":"","advgb_blocks_columns_visual_guide":"","_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[20,76],"class_list":["post-2068","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-cycling","tag-lavuelta"],"acf":[],"author_meta":{"display_name":"8850 Media","author_link":"https:\/\/8850media.com\/np\/author\/usr_8850\/"},"featured_img":"https:\/\/8850media.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/09\/Vuelta-stage-18-300x200.jpeg","coauthors":[],"tax_additional":{"categories":{"linked":["News<\/a>"],"unlinked":["News<\/span>"]},"tags":{"linked":["Cycling<\/a>","LaVuelta<\/a>"],"unlinked":["Cycling<\/span>","LaVuelta<\/span>"]}},"comment_count":0,"relative_dates":{"created":"Posted 2 \u0935\u0930\u094d\u0937 ago","modified":"Updated 2 \u0935\u0930\u094d\u0937 ago"},"absolute_dates":{"created":"Posted on 6 \u0938\u0947\u092a\u094d\u091f\u0947\u092e\u094d\u092c\u0930 2024","modified":"Updated on 6 \u0938\u0947\u092a\u094d\u091f\u0947\u092e\u094d\u092c\u0930 2024"},"absolute_dates_time":{"created":"Posted on 6 \u0938\u0947\u092a\u094d\u091f\u0947\u092e\u094d\u092c\u0930 2024 09:11","modified":"Updated on 6 \u0938\u0947\u092a\u094d\u091f\u0947\u092e\u094d\u092c\u0930 2024 13:14"},"featured_img_caption":"[:en]Spanish rider Urko Berrade of the Kern Pharma team celebrates after winning the 179.5-km 18th stage that runs through Basque Country roads in La Vuelta a Espa\u00f1a. Photo:La Vuelta<\/em>[:]","series_order":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/8850media.com\/np\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2068","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/8850media.com\/np\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/8850media.com\/np\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/8850media.com\/np\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/8850media.com\/np\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2068"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/8850media.com\/np\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2068\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2074,"href":"https:\/\/8850media.com\/np\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2068\/revisions\/2074"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/8850media.com\/np\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2075"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/8850media.com\/np\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2068"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/8850media.com\/np\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2068"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/8850media.com\/np\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2068"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}