BRANDON MCNULTY SNATCHED victory in the first stage of the Vuelta a Espana on Saturday, edging an individual time trial ahead of Mathias Vacek as the year’s third Grand Tour began in Lisbon.
Ireland’s Eddie Dunbar and Darren Rafferty were also in action, finishing 33rd and 37th respectively. Cork’s Dunbar, who is riding as leader of the Jayco AlUla squad, set a time of 13′ 14” while Dungannon’s Rafferty is making his Grand Tour debut at 21 years of age with EF Education-EasyPost squad. He clocked a time of 13′ 15”.
American UAE Team Emirates rider McNulty was the penultimate rider to set off on the 12 kilometre run to Oeiras and beat Vacek by two seconds, with final rider Wout van Aert taking third in a thrilling finale.
Defending champion Sepp Kuss finished over half a minute down on general classification contender and three-time champion Primoz Roglic who came in eighth, 17 seconds behind McNulty’s 12 minutes 35 seconds.
“I was hoping for something good today but this is really hard to believe for me,” said 26-year-old McNulty.
“I knew if something crazy happened I could (do it), so I guess something crazy happened.”
With star trio star trio Tadej Pogacar, Jonas Vingegaard and Remco Evenepoel not competing, the general classification is wide open this year.
Slovenian veteran Roglic, aiming for a joint-record fourth triumph, got off to a strong start as the Vuelta began in Portugal for the first time since 1997.
Portuguese UAE rider Joao Almeida, starting the race to big support on home soil, also impressed and finished two seconds behind Roglic.
Italian Visma-Lease a bike rider Edoardo Affini set the pace early on with a time of 12 minutes 43 seconds and it looked potentially a winning one when European time trial champion and stage favourite Josh Tarling came in 0.28 seconds behind it.
However Czech rider Vacek powered ahead of Affini by six seconds and held the lead until McNulty stormed in.
“I worked hard for this… I gave it everything and couldn’t do much better, I’m really happy with it,” Lidl-Trek rider Vacek said while waiting to see if he could hold on.
“The wind was really strong but we knew that and I think it was the same for everyone, it was about pure power.”
Last down the starting ramp, Visma’s Van Aert led at the intermediate checkpoint but did not have enough in the tank to depose McNulty.
“I didn’t feel great, too soon it started to hurt and it was a long way to the finish… the feeling was not how I hoped for,” said the explosive Belgian.
Sunday’s second stage remains in Portugal, taking riders 194km from Cascais to Ourem.
The 79th edition of the race ends in Madrid on September 8 after 21 stages and 3,265km of riding.
Additional reporting by Sinéad Farrell
