Darren Rafferty may have just turned 21-years-old, and making his Grand Tour debut at La Vuelta, but today he made the breakaway on a brutally hilly stage. He then helped drag his EF Education-EasyPost team leader, Richard Carapaz, much closer to the front of the race, ensuring he gained a lot of time to move up 15 places overall to 3rd.
Rafferty's performance in riding himself to a standstill for Carapaz for about 15km was an instrumental moment in the race, and may prove vital in the team's efforts to win this race overall, or at least make the final podium.
It was a very impressive - and mature - performance by Rafferty, who played a pivotal role on the 178.5km stage 9 from Motril to Granada, with a massive 4,486m of elevation gain; the Co Tyrone World Tour neo pro stepping up on one of the biggest days.
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Unfortunately, it was a mixed day for the two Irish riders on the race because as Rafferty was off the front racing for his team leader, Eddie Dunbar (Team Jayco AlUla) was enduring a day to forget in the baking sun.
??? | De Ierse kampioen Darren Rafferty is zijn gewicht in goud waard vandaag. Hij rijdt zijn kopman Richard Carapaz voorbij Roglic in het klassement. Nog twee beklimmingen te gaan! #LaVuelta24
? Stream koers op HBO Max pic.twitter.com/L63PXW5pjx
— Eurosport Nederland (@Eurosport_NL) August 25, 2024
The Cork man, who had looked in recent days like he was gathering up his form, was not in the running today. He lost 11:31 to the winner, Adam Yates (UAE Team Emirates) though he still finished in 27th place on the stage. After his heroics, Rafferty finished in 76th at 29:39.
Rafferty's breakaway, which went early, numbered no fewer than 26 riders and seven of those men already had Vuelta stage wins on their career palmares.
In the group were: Wout van Aert (Visma-Lease a Bike), David Gaudu, Stefan Küng (Groupama-FDJ), Quinten Hermans, Xandro Meurisse (Alpecin-Deceuninck), Adam Yates, Jay Vine, Marc Soler (UAE Team Emirates), Ruben Fernandez, Jesus Herrada, Jonathan Lastra (Cofidis), Patrick Konrad, Sam Oomen (Lidl-Trek), Kasper Asgreen (T-Rex-QuickStep), Torsten Traeen (Bahrain Victorious), Jonas Gregaard (Lotto Dstny), Nelson Oliveira (Movistar), Oscar Rodriguez (Ineos Grenadiers), Felix Engelhardt, Chris Harper (Jacyo-AlUla) and Pablo Castrillo, Pau Miquel (Kern-Pharma). DSM-Firmenich-PostNL initially missed the move but sent Max Poole and Gijs Leemreize across.
After 30km completed the group had four minutes and as Gaudu was best-placed overall in the breakaway, some 6:30 down, there was no huge risk for the general classification leader Ben O'Connor (Decathlon AG2R La Mondiale).
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With 60km completed the breakaway's advantage went to 5:30 and just over 20km later the first of the day's three big climbs began, El Purche, at 8.9km and 7.6 per cent average gradient.
Immediately the road kicked up, UAE Team Emirates began shredding the breakaway and it was soon down to just Soler, Yates, Vine, Gaudu, Kung, Castillo, Harper, Rafferty, andTraen; impressive by Grand Tour debutant Rafferty to make the cut.
In the bunch behind, Rafferty's team mate Carapaz attacked very hard and soon had one minute on the remains of the peloton. That then increased to two minutes and up front, just before the top of the climb, Rafferty slipped off the back of the group, with 81.5km to go.
The Irishman then waited for Carapaz, allowing riders long dropped from the breakaway to pass him. Carapaz first caught team mate James Shaw, who aided him for a time. Carapaz then caught Rafferty, with the Irishman burying himself for a long time in a bid to help his team leader get to the front of the race.
Carapaz caught Rafferty, on the descent of the first climb, with about 75km to go. Once they joined forces and began moving on to the next ascent, Rafferty remained at the front as they caught and dropped other riders who had been in the initial breakaway.
For 15km, Rafferty emptied the tank, having dragged Carapaz much closer to the leaders and leaving him in a small group that included Van Aert.
Rafferty's huge work was done down the first climb and then up the uncategorised Guejar Sierra, with Carapaz just 1:25 down on the three leaders - Yates, Vine and Gaudu - by the time Rafferty's work was done.
However, once Yates realised Carapaz was on a charge, and catching them, he attacked solo with 58km to go on the first of two passages of the Hazallanas climb; some 7.1km averaging 9.6 per cent.
In the end, Yates was simply too good to be beaten today, ploughing on solo to win the stage by 1:39 from Carapaz. They were the only two attackers not caught by the general classification group, which was led in by race leader O'Connor, some 3:45 down on Yates and 2:06 down on Carapaz.
And those time gains by Carapaz means he has now moved up 15 places to 3rd overall, now 4:32 down on maillot rojo O'Connor and just 39 seconds down on 2nd placed Primož Roglič (Red Bull-Bora-hansgrohe).
