Vacek surprises with incredible time trial at the Vuelta a España

The Czech champion finishes second and takes the jersey of the best young rider, while Skjelmose and Geoghegan Hart both show excellent performances

In his first ever Grand Tour stage, Mathias Vacek surprised the field with an incredible performance in Lisbon. He would have been crowned the winner had it not been for an even better Brandon McNulty, who beat Vacek's best time by two seconds and knocked the young Czech out of the race. With an elite field of established time trialists on the start list, few would have expected Vacek to achieve such an outstanding result, but the 22-year-old was secretly confident after successful altitude training and a string of solid TT results this season.

I knew I could do a good time, but I didn't expect it to be that good. I worked really hard for it and in the end it was worth it. I gave it my all and couldn't have done better. I'm really happy with it. I felt really good and just wanted to go as fast as possible to win. – Mathias Vacek

I worked hard, did a really good preparation with the team in an altitude training camp and now we can see that it's paying off. I'm really happy with my performance and confident for what's to come. – Mathias Vacek

And while Vacek was leading the overall, Lidl-Trek's overall hopefuls Mattias Skjelmose (13th on 22″) and Tao Geoghegan Hart (26th on 31″) both put in strong rides to place themselves at the top of their rivals. As he cooled down, Skjelmose revealed: “This is the greatest performance I've ever shown on the TT bike. It was a great performance and I'm happy with the result. At the moment I don't think I could have gone any faster. It's always good to start well. In Denmark we say 'a good start is half the battle', so we've done well now and we only have 20 stages to go.”