Vuelta a España: Jakobsen back on the podium at a Grand Tour

Our rider came close to taking his third victory at the Spanish race in what was a chaotic finale.

Fabio Jakobsen has returned to a Grand Tour for the first time in two years and as soon as he had the opportunity, he showed he means business. The 24-year-old, a winner of two stages last month at the Tour de Wallonie, was one of the main protagonists of the flat and hot stage 2 that took the bunch from Caleruega to Burgos, which for the second day running hosted a finish.

After Deceuninck – Quick-Step made sure of sweeping the remnants of the breakaway inside 20 kilometers to go, Bert Van Lerberghe moved up and launched Jakobsen for the intermediate sprint in Tardajos, which the Dutchman won easily, racking up 20 points in the green jersey classification. The Wolfpack kept the speed high and remained at the front of the peloton as they approached Burgos, where with just four kilometers to go a crash happened. Fortunately, our riders avoided it and could set up our sprinter for the first mass gallop of the race.

On the finishing straight, Fabio was in a good position, but just a couple of seconds later found himself boxed in and had to find another line. Even in these conditions, he still produced a powerful sprint, overtaking all the riders in front, bar Jasper Philipsen (Alpecin-Fenix), on his way to a close second – his fifth podium in a Grand Tour stage.

“I am disappointed. The sprint wasn’t perfect, because I had to do a lot of effort to pass the guy in front of me with 200 meters to go and for a split second there I lost some speed. But I can’t complain, to be in the top 3 here is still a good result which makes me confident that a win is possible in the next days”, said Fabio at the end of the stage which saw his Deceuninck – Quick-Step teammate Andrea Bagioli retain the white jersey.

Photo credit: ©Gonzalo Arroyo Moreno / Getty Images