After a disappointing 24 hours for the team, which saw the withdrawal of João Almeida from the Vuelta España, Adam Yates bounced back in strong fashion to lift the team with a significant victory on the queen stage from Motril to Granada (178.5km).
Yates entered a sizeable breakaway which went away in the early stages as they left the port of Motril with teammates Marc Soler and Jay Vine joining him to reinforce the assault by the Emirati squad. The British climber took flight solo at -60km to the line on the Hazallanas climb and managed to extend his advantage on the steep gradients.
Arriving solo to the city of Granada Yates had plenty of time to celebrate as he took out a lead of 3’45” on most of his GC rivals to move himself back into the picture in the hunt for the red jersey which continues to be worn by Ben O’ Connor (Decathlon-AG2R) who leads with an advantage of 5’30” over Yates who jumps up to 7th place.
Meanwhile, in France, Marc Hirschi took another important victory at the Bretagne Classic, his second consecutive win in a one-day World Tour classic following his triumph at the San Sebastian Classic just two weeks ago.
The Swiss talent arrived solo to the line just metres ahead of the chasing peloton who could not close the gap to the flying puncheur.