Rafferty up the road at La Vuelta, Dunbar holds firm in GC | Video

Irish champion Darren Rafferty in the breakaway on today's stage 16 at La Vuelta; the 21-year-old neo pro riding strongly into the third week (Photo: Unipublic Cxcling-Toni Baixauli)

Darren Rafferty (EF Education-EasyPost) has once again gone on the attack at La Vuelta, with the 21-year-old from Co Tyrone spending much of today's mountainous stage 16 in a breakaway that gained over six minutes at one point.

Though he slipped back on the penultimate climb, as the strongest men from the escape group made it all the way, it was a very strong ride by Rafferty, and his second breakaway ride of the race.

Eddie Dunbar (Team Jayco AlUla) climbed in the general classification group until it blew apart on the HC 12km climb of Lagos de Covadonga to the finish line.

Dunbar crossed the line in 23rd place, with nine breakaway men ahead of him and 13 riders from the general classification group. He was 5:36 down on Marc Soler, the UAE Team Emirates rider who took a fine win from the breakaway, and 1:42 down on the first of the GC group riders, Enri Mas (Movistar).

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Though Mas made several moves on the final climb today, to distance race leader Ben O'Connor (Decathlon AG2R La Mondiale) and to try and drop Primož Roglič (Red Bull-Bora-hansgrohe), Roglič stuck with him, as did Richard Carapaz (EF Education-EasyPost).

O'Connor battled bravely up the final climb and, though he lost time, he clung to the race leader's jersey by just five seconds, after losing 58 seconds to Mas, Roglič and Carapaz.

Up front, Soler pulled clear in the final with Max Poole (Team dsm-firmenich PostNL) and Filippo Zana (Team Jayco AlUla). And though Poole looked the strongest several times as on the summit climb, it was Soler who had the most in the tank, enabling him pull clear solo, to win by eighteen seconds from Zana, with Poole 3rd at 23 seconds.

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Rafferty finished 48th at 15:49 and despite losing some time today, and slipping further behind those ahead of him overall, Dunbar maintained his 15th place on GC; now 12:25 down on O'Connor, whose time in the red jersey looks like it is almost up.

Today Rafferty's breakaway group went clear after a furious opening 35km and when it opened a gap it contained 17 riders.

In that group were: Wout van Aert  (Visma-Lease a Bike), Isaac Del Toro, Jay Vine and Marc Soler (UAE Team Emirates), William Junior Lecerf  (T-Rex-Quick-Step), Marco Frigo and Matthew Riccitello (Israel-Premier Tech), Sylvain Moniquet (Lotto-Dstny), Darren Rafferty (EF Education-EasyPost), Oier Lazkano (Movistar), Fran Miholjevic (Bahrain Victorious), Felix Engelhardt and Filippo Zana (Jayco-AlUla), Simon Guglielmi (Arkéa-B&B Hotels), Max Poole and Martijn Tusveld (DSM-Firmenich PostNL) and Ion Izagirre (Cofidis).

Rafferty was among those who lost out when the group split on the penultimate climb of Collada Llomena, on the decent of which three-time stage winner Van Aert crashed with about 50km to go and had to abandon the race.

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