Remi Cavagna (Detunink-Quickstep) scored a stunning breakaway victory on Friday's 16th stage of the Vuelta a España by just 2km.

In 2019, Cavagna won in Spain by 5 seconds over Ireland's Sam Bennett (then with Bora-Hansgrohe) on the third and final stage of the Vuelta, also after a 25km solo breakaway.

This time, at the front of the breakaway group, after the second and first difficult mountains, and with the gap down to single digits, Cavagna pulled his last companion, Mitchelton-Scott's Rob Power, 22, also a notable Grand Tour debutant, off the last, drag-like, class of the day! He pulled away on the undivided climb. [And with 16km to go, buoyed by a tailwind, the pack chased hard down the winding descent, reaching speeds of 70km/h in places, with a 19-second gap.

Finally, when Mitchelton-Scott and Movistar joined forces, the gap began to slowly close. But even if the Spanish railroad bridge was ultimately too far for this Frenchman, his guts in trying to defy the peloton were widely admired.

"I like to go through these efforts alone," he said.

"When I win it's never a sprint, so I try to win alone, and I tried that today, but I didn't succeed because the pack was pulling a full gas behind me, I heard 20 seconds, 18 seconds, and I couldn't go any faster.

He agreed that the tailwind was a strong ally in the team's mission to achieve its 100th Grand Tour win. He said, "It was perfect for me, because I like to turn my legs fast.

"When I saw the group was 15 seconds behind, I thought, 'Oh, it's over.' But in my head I thought, "If we keep going a little bit further, maybe the two of us will see each other."

Cavagna also drew praise from Stannard. Stannard called Cavagna "a spectacular rider, super strong."

"I felt great too, but he attacked and I couldn't keep up," Stannard said in the team's published record.

"But if anyone could have done it and made it to the finish, it was Remi."