Lennard Kämna threw his arms up and thumped his chest after storming up the muddy track on the Collado de la Cruz. The former junior world champion completed his triple in the Grand Tours and won the 9th stage of the 78th Vuelta single-handedly.
After his stage wins at the Tour de France in Villard-de-Lans (2020) and the Giro d'Italia on Mount Etna (2022), he was now also able to celebrate at the third of the three major cycling tours. Kämna won 184.5 kilometres from Cartagena to Collado de la Cruz de Caravaca with a lead of around 30 seconds over the Italian Matteo Sobrero (Team Jayco-ALUla).
So it worked at the third attempt. The 26-year-old already had victory in sight on stage 3 before he was caught around 1.5 kilometres before the finish. And Kämna had also tried his luck in a breakaway group in vain on stage 6.
Kämna attacks a good five kilometres before the finish
This time, however, no one was able to catch him. A good five kilometres before the finish, Kämna attacked on the 8.2-kilometre final climb with an average gradient of 5.4 per cent from an original breakaway group of eight riders and rode confidently to victory on his own. Sobrero, who will be riding with Kämna on the Bora-hansgrohe team next season, was unable to counter his attack.
The 9th stage had hardly any influence on the overall standings. The American Sepp Kuss, who actually started the race as a noble helper to Tour champion Jonas Vingegaard and Giro winner Primoz Roglic (all Jumbo-Visma), continues to wear the red jersey. The three superstars Remco Evenepoel (Soudal Quick-Step), Roglic and Vingegaard crossed the finish line almost at the same time.
The time was taken two kilometres before the finish. Even during the race, there was extreme rainfall and strong winds at the finish. The road was flooded in places, which made the organisers, who were already facing criticism after various problems, more concerned about accidents in the final section than the desire to finish the stage normally.
After the first rest day, the individual time trial over 25.8 kilometres awaits on Tuesday. The duel between the Belgian time trial world champion Evenepoel and Vingegaard, who dominated the competition against the clock at the Tour, promises to be particularly exciting.
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