Watch: Vuelta a España stage 6 highlights

After two sleepy days at the Vuelta a España, the race erupted in a frantic day of racing on stage 6 through the medium mountains of the Valencia. With illness swirling around the peloton before the stage, the table was set for aggressive racing. Add some wind to the mix and a classically punchy Vuelta parcours, and the ingredients were all there for a big fight.

After constant early skirmishes, a breakaway of 42 riders made it up the road and quickly gained over six minutes. Notable names out front included Lenny Martinez (Groupama-FDJ), Romain Bardet (dsm-firmenich) and Sepp Kuss (Jumbo-Visma). Significantly, Kuss had three teammates with him in the break. Soudal Quick-Step were firmly on the back foot back in the peloton and had to chase hard with Ineos Grenadiers and Movistar, two other teams that had missed out in the big breakaway of the day.

On the final climb, the peloton had reduced the gap to just over three minutes and Remco Evenepoel (Soudal Quick-Step) was looking like he would limit his losses to those in the breakaway. Nevertheless, Jumbo-Visma would flip the script, with Sepp Kuss launching from the breakaway and taking on the climb up to the Javalambre observatory in full flight. Behind, Primoz Roglic (Jumbo-Visma) attacked from the peloton and immediately had a gap, with Evenepoel visibly struggling behind. Soon, Jonas Vingegaard shot across the gap, and it was firmly the Jumbo-Visma show on all fronts.

By the end of the climb, Kuss had sailed across the line first, with high fives along the way to boot, and Roglic and Vingegaard came across the line together well ahead of Evenepoel. Nevertheless, 20-year-old Lenny Martinez was able to come across the line in second and was close enough to the American to take the overall lead by eight seconds over Kuss. Evenepoel was able to limit his losses and remained ahead of Roglic and Vingegaard, but only just, with a gap to Martinez of 2:47.