Exactly one week after they took their first victory of the 2016 Vuelta a España with Simon Yates, Orica-BikeExchange were back on top the stage winner's podium in Spain's Grand Tour on Thursday thanks to Belgian fast man Jens Keukeleire.
After Yates made a couple of probing attacks in the last few kilometres, Keukeleire started his sprint for the line with 300 metres to go on Bilbao's Gran Via, a long effort that caught the other remaining sprinters off-guard.
"I was initially thinking about not going too early because there was a headwind, but then I went from so far out because I didn't want to get boxed in," Keukeleire said.
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"I took a risk, but I knew a lot of the sprinters were not going to be there."
Kristian Sparagli (Dimension Data), a Vuelta stage winner last year, was arguably the highest profile sprinter in the 44-rider group that disputed the Bilbao stage, but he finally took fourth - "so I think that risk was worth it."
It was the Belgian's first WorldTour victory in a career stretching back to 2010 and which was marked, for better and - given how much it raised expectations perhaps for worse - by a remarkable spring period in his first year.
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