The riders have another long stage ahead of them in the Vuelta a España. The first part of the stage goes uphill towards the only categorized climb of the day named Puerto de Casa del Alto. This is a climb of second category and it’s thirteen kilometres long and has a gradient of 3.8%. The second part of stage eighteen goes downhill towards the finish in Gandía.

Lotto Soudal's Jelle Wallays previews the stage.

“This year’s Vuelta has offered a lot of opportunities for riders in the breakaway. Usually they get their chances in tough stages or those stages with a hard uphill finish. That’s the reason why it was hard for me, or even useless, to be in the breakaway. Because in those kind of stages, I know that I wouldn’t be able to win.

“For today I expect that, once again, it will be hard to get in the breakaway. I still feel pretty good even though I have suffered for a few days. After the rest day, I got through yesterday’s stage pretty well and I still feel fit. I hope to be a part of the break today and maybe some other riders of the team can join me.

“Depending on the amount of riders in the break of today’s stage, several teams will feel the need to control the bunch and catch the break. I’m thinking about Trek-Segafredo, Etixx – Quick-Step or Giant-Alpecin that would want the stage to end in a bunch sprint. For Lotto Soudal it’s important that several riders are paying good attention so that we definitely have someone in the breakaway today. Even though we have Tosh Van der Sande for the sprint, we can’t let an important group of riders get away without a rider of our team.”