Vuelta a Espana: ‘Not just Mathieu van der Poel’ – Adam Blythe on ‘mightly impressive’ Kaden Groves, Alpecin-Deceuninck

Groves’ impressive sprint win made it 24 wins for his team across the season so far, as their hugely successful 2023 continues.

Following a crash on the final corner in Tuesday’s Tarragona finish, Groves rounded Juan Sebastian Molano (UAE Team Emirates) on the home straight to clinch the win following a dramatic two-horse race.

“Every race they come to they get a result, they always highlight the race in one way or another. They did it great today, from the start and taking control, making sure that break went away.

“There didn’t seem to look like there was a huge fight to get in the break, but nonetheless, they controlled it all the way through the stage with a little bit of help from dsm-firmenich as well.”

Blythe was not just impressed with the way Groves handled the latter stages of the race on Tuesday to secure the win, but also with the team’s overall performance and handling of the stage.

“Just to be as structured as they are with one clear goal and be able to nail that on a day like today,” he added. “Even though there are not that many sprinters in the field, it almost becomes more stressful because you get more riders trying to come up in the finish that are not necessarily sprinters.

“When that happens, it’s almost like it becomes more chaotic in a way because they don’t really know that situation as much as the other sprinters do.

“The leaders are the sprinters who are normally there, they are so used to that whereas riders that aren’t used to being in that situation in bunch sprints, it almost becomes more dangerous because they’re just constantly trying to fight and they’re not looking around, they’re just looking at that one wheel in front, whereas the big lead out teams and the big lead out trains, they know what’s happening around them a little bit more and have that awareness.

“For Groves to be there at the finish today, with all that chaos around him, it’s mightly impressive.”

Groves himself was delighted to get the win on a difficult stage.

“It was actually a really hard day,” he told Eurosport. “With only dsm-firmenich and ourselves controlling I had to use two guys to control the breakaway and that used a lot of energy, but my team was fantastic today – super aggressive and we were always there on time, and it paid off with the victory.

“I’m really happy. It’s been a good year now, having a stage win in the Giro and now I’ve already won in the Vuelta quite early and hopefully, it’s not the last.”