SPAIN: UAE Team Emirates’ Brandon McNulty put in the ride of his life to secure a narrow victory in the stage 1 time trial from Lisbon to Oeiras at the Vuelta España.
The American cyclist expertly navigated the parcours ahead of second place Mathias Vacek (Lidl-Trek) by just two seconds. The podium was rounded out by Wout van Aert (Visma-Lease a Bike) who went off last.
McNulty was the second-to-last rider to start which meant he had his teammates and also his rivals times for reference.
At the 7km mark, Van Aert was slightly ahead of Vacek, with McNulty trailing by two seconds. However, in the final stretch, McNulty displayed his strength, powering home with a blistering average speed of 57.197 kph to claim victory.
It will be the first time the American will don the leaders jersey of a Grand Tour.
McNulty said: ‘I don’t know if I expected to win but I knew if something crazy happened, then I could win – so I guess something crazy happened, I was hoping for something good today but this is hard to belie
ve for me.
I just had super good legs. I’ve been feeling really good in training. I really went for the Olympics, and I’ve had good legs since then. I knew I could do something good, but I didn’t expect to win.’
The finale of stage 6 of the Tour of Poland ended in a copy of each summit finish this week with Diego Ulissi narrowly missing victory behind Thibaut Nys (Lidl-Trek) who took his third victory of the week. The Italian veteran has showed great form and it was on display again on the hilly transfer from Wadowice to Bukovina Resort(183.2km). The stage podium was rounded out by Oscar Onley (DSM Firmenich).
Source : Emirates News Agency