The riders at the Vuelta a Esppana have covered 7 of a total of 21 stages and it has already been very tiring. Today they get a rather easy course, but with a first category climb at the end. The Alto de la Camperona is 8.5 kilometres long and has an average gradient of 7.4%. Will it become a battle between GC riders for the stage win or will an escapee take the victory once again?

Louis Vervaeke, who’s riding the Vuelta for the first time, share his thoughts.

“I’ve experienced that there are no flat stages in Spain," he said. "Each day there have been 2000 to 3000 altitude metres. Today is actually one of the few stages in which we don’t need to climb much. The heat is also an extra factor here, that doesn’t make it easier. And it’s going really fast, like the day that Gert Dockx was part of the break. That was a really strong breakaway and they kept having an advantage of around two minutes while BMC was setting a strong pace. The teams haven’t been racing too controlled though, there are chances for escapees as we have seen.

“I hadn’t imagined it to go so fast here, but I’m feeling fine. If a large group gets away today I might join it, but we’ll see how it goes. There are several more chances for me to come in this Vuelta. It could be that the GC riders want to aim for the stage win. You have Tinkoff that probably wants to have a calm day as Alberto Contador crashed yesterday, but on the other hand opponents like Sky and Movistar might want to go full. We’ll see, you never know what’s going to happen in cycling. There are surprises every day.”