Bora-Hansgrohe is aiming for a more aggressive race strategy in 2022, Leonard Chemuna told reporters at Ruta del Sol on Sunday. The German's solo stage win at Chiclana de Segura is certainly the latest evidence of their tactical shift.

The 2022 Bora-Hansgrohe, winner of the Volta a la Comunitat Valenciana with Alexandre Vlasov two weeks ago, looks and feels very different now that its longtime leader, Peter Sagan, has left for the winter.

But while Kemna paid tribute to Sagan after his solo victory on Sunday, the 25-year-old insisted that Bora-Hansgrohe is going to play a different kind of game in 2022.

"With Sagan gone, we have a little more freedom, but Peter was a great leader and someone you could always count on. Peter was a great leader and someone we could always count on."

As he explained earlier, "We want to be aggressive and win races. We want to be up front and right now we are kind of in the process of doing that." They are "changing their chips" a bit, he agreed.

Kemna himself was always a specialist in exceptional breakaways, having won stages at the Tour de France, Volta a Catalunya, and Criterium du Dauphiné before his Ruta del Sol victory.

All of those victories were solo, but the gap at the finish line to Lorenzo Fortunato (Eolo Cometa) was the narrowest ever at 4 seconds, and the gap to stage 2 winner and former race leader Alessandro Covi (UAE Team Emirates) was 6 seconds.

But there was no questioning Kemna's motivation to win after an infection forced him to leave the race for an extended period of time in late 2021.

Kemna, who finished fourth in the Classica Haen one-day race in Ubeda, just two hours away from Sunday's victory, was also present for the opening break and the second break in this ruta.

"It was a super hard stage and we attacked right from the start. He explained, "I did a great job with the final group of three."

Teammate Fredrik Wandahl, who rode the first and second stages with Kemna, said that there were more than a dozen breakaways in both stages and that Kemna kept an eye on the two previous Ruta stage winners, Kovi and young Ineos Grenadiers rider Magnus Sheffield.

And when Emmanuel Buchmann, another Bora-Hansgrohe rider and a top-five Tour de France finisher, launched an attack on the final climb, Chemna finally attacked with 3.4 km to go.

Chemna did not initially appear to be struggling, but he said that the last kilometer was touch and go.

However, the gap to Covi and the rest of the pack was closing fast towards the end of the climb, but Kemna still held on and took his first win since last year's Volta a Catalunya. More evidence was also presented that Bora-Hansgrohe had successfully changed his racing tactics in 2022.