Probably the hardest stage in this Vuelta, today we have clearly the longest mountain stage in the race, with 230 kms between Andorra and Peyragudes, where the stage finishes after climbing before 4 Cat.1 climbs, Cantó, Bonaigua, Bales and Peyresourde.
We come from a change of race leader, with Silvio Herklotz wearing the Red Jersey for the first time in his career after winning his third stage win in the last 5 days in Collada de la Gallina, to finally overtake both Angel Madrazo and Taylor Phinney in GC. Though both riders are within 20 seconds of the lead, so today the jersey is again in play
The stage doesn’t kick off with a climb, but the riders don’t have to wait for long to get to the bottom of Coll del Cantó, a climb with 25 kms at 5%. A really nice way to start a stage.
Three riders have arrived at this climb with a 3-minute gap to the bunch; Stetina, repeating breakaway from yesterday, Laengen and Alarcon, second in the KoM standings and Top20 in GC
Not even halfway through Cantó, and Puma’s high pace in the bunch has reduced to only 100 riders. While in the breakaway Alarcon is making Laengen and Stetina to suffer a lot to stay on his wheel
Alarcon easily wins the top points in Coll del Cantó, which is enough to take the provisional KoM lead from Galta, despite the Aker rider having attacked from the bunch to take the remaining points
Coll del Canto - Cat. 1
Alarcon 16
Stetina 12
Laengen 10
Galta 8
Egger 6
Chevrier 4
Carpenter 2
Galta finally joins the breakaway when the descent of Cantó is finished. The gap of this group to the bunch is over 4minutes now, with still 175 kms left
The peloton starts the second climb of the day, Port de la Bonaigua, a climb with 19 kms at 6%. It’s too far from the finish to be a decisive climb, but in this multy-climb stages its purpouse is to wear down the energies of the riders
Bad news for the breakaway, as their gap is reduced to 1’30 mid-Bonaigua, as first Gazelle and now Puma are setting a high pace in this climb. This means that the peloton is reduced to less than 100 riders for the first time in the stage
Alarcon killing the oposition in Bonaigua, as he goes first over the top to put more points between him and Galta in the KoM fight. This sprint means that their gap rises to almost 4 minutes, but we have like 70 kms before the next climb, so plently of time for the bunch to reduce it again
Port de la Bonaigua - Cat.1
Alarcon 16
Galta 12
Stetina 10
Laengen 8
Egger 6
Nerz 4
Sosnitskiy 2
Just before starting Col de Aspin, Goos (23rd GC) attacks
Other riders see this as an opportunity to be brave, and try to follow the Vesuvio rider, like Brambilla and Vinhas first, and then Aru, Faiers, Kolesnikov and Faglum Karlsson. The early breakaway has no real chance now, as their gap to these attackers is just over the minute, and not even 2 minutes to the leader’s group
Only a couple of kms into Aspin, but all late attackers but Goos have been reeled in by Konrad
With 10 kms to the top of Aspin, Alarcon decides to attack and go alone to the finish. Laengen tries to hang on his wheel, while Galta struggles a lot to follow the Venezuelan. Meanwhile, Goos adventure is over.
Konrad didn’t stop pacing, and forced a split with only Madrazo and Herklotz with a team-mate on it, though Tinkoff closed it quickly. But that forced another split, with Phinney, Tenorio and Kritskiy behind, so Tinkoff stopped, and Konrad, Madrazo and Herklotz broke away from the bunch, in the moment they were catching Stetina
It took a while for Cort Nielsen and Phinney to get to the front, so the gap of the trio ahead was already 45 seconds, but when they did, no one follow them, despite Martin, Tenorio and Kritskiy being in the first 5 places of the group, so they quickly opened a gap to the bunch too
Still 7 kms to the top of Aspin, but the gaps just keep growing. Madrazo and Herklotz have catched up to Galta and Laengen, so only Alarcon left in front, one minute ahead of them. 45 seconds behind, there’s the RBC duo with Cort Nielsen and Phinney, and 45 seconds further behind is the bunch, where Tinkoff is working on the chase right now
Once Konrad is empty, is Herklotz the one that starts to work in that group, with Stetina getting dropped inmediately and Laengen and Galta suffering to stay there. Phinney is also on his own now, though the gap to the bunch is increasing at least for him, but he’s unable to reduce the 45 seconds to the race leader
With 4 kms to the top of Aspin, Phinney is finally only 20 seconds behind Herklotz and Madrazo. The rest of the breakaway riders have been dropped, while Alarcon has only 40 seconds of advantage now.
Behind them, there’s a weird race scenario. Kritskiy, Martin, Tenorio and Cattaneo have attacked, but they are 1’30 behind Phinney. But they are also 1’30 ahead of the bunch, where no one gives a f..k right now about the stage or the GC, despite being there all the low side of the GC Top10, and with Cattaneo ahead, they all could lose a spot in GC
Phinney has finally got to the duo ahead, while Kritskiy and Martin have heavily reduced their losses, while dropping Tenorio and Cattaneo. Alarcon is still ahead, but just 20 seconds, and is accelerating to secure the KoM points at the top of Aspin
Alarcon is able to go first over this climb, and 30 seconds behind him there’s the group with the five best riders of this race, the first 5 in GC; Herklotz, Madrazo, Phinney, Kritskiy and Martin. Thing behind them are hard to explain, with so many changes with riders attacking from the bunch seeing no collaboration, waiting for their domestiques, losing more time, and then to the next rider placed in GC, so better explained with the current time gaps
Col de Aspin - Cat.1
Alarcon 16
Madrazo 12
Phinney 10
Kritskiy 8
Martin 6
Herklotz 4
Tenorio 2
Madrazo is leading the group is the downhill and after a few kms, Alarcon is caught by this group
16 kms to go, and the leading group starts Col du Peyresourde, a 10-km climb. After that, a short descent before arriving at the Peyragudes Sky Station, after a short punchy climb. The gap to Tenorio and Cattaneo is almost 2 minutes
Dan Martin goes first, and from long range! Alarcon doesn’t even care about this fight, he’ll be saving energies for future days, and Kritskiy as always struggles with the fast accelerations
Terrible moment for Kritskiy, as once Martin stopped his attack, he had already lost 45 seconds to the leading group. Alarcon is almost getting caught by Tenorio and Cattaneo. Madrazo doesn’t want the rhythm to stop, so he goes to the front of the group to relay
Phinney attacks with 6 kms to the top of Peyresourde!
Herklotz and Madrazo followed the American “easily”, but Dan Martin couldn’t, so just the three in front to fight for the stage win and the GC
And just when they were going through the 10-km kit, and Martin was approaching again to them, Herklotz launches his first attack of the day!
And it was actually Herklotz the first to get back in the saddle, so the three of them remain in the lead. It won’t be easy for any of them to crack the other two. This has seen Martin dropped to 40 seconds behind, with Kritskiy at 1’30, and Tenorio and Cattaneo almost 2’50
Not sure if it’s a sprint for the KoM points, if it’s a tactic to start first the descent, or if Herklotz really wants to drop the others before Peyragudes, not trusting his good sprint that has already given him two stage wins, but he’s attacking again with just 1 km to the top of the climb. This only hurts more to Martin, who is always oscilating between 25 and 40 seconds of disadvantage
And again it’s for nothing this attack, which only shows that maybe Herklotz is the weakest of the trio today
Martin starts Peyragudes, the final 3,5 kms, 28 seconds behind the leading trio
Final km of the stage, and Herkotz will enter it in the first position, like he did yesterday to win in Collada de la Gallina. Phinney is actually the better sprinter, but he still lost to Herklotz in the first of the German stage wins. Martin is still 28 seconds behind, so no factor in the stage win decision
600 metres to go and they haven’t started the sprint yet...
.. but when they do, Herklotz gets a couple of bikes distance over Phinney, who can’t execute a good sprint now
So it’s win number 4 for the race leader Silvio Herklotz! So amazing what this 24-year-old German is doing in this race.
Phinney is second again behind the wonderkid, finishing on his same time
Not so lucky is Madrazo, who cracked in the sprint, and will lose 22 seconds that will see him dropping to third in GC
Around a minute is Dan Martin’s loss today. Pretty acceptable given who beated him, and that he’s winning a lot of time to almost secure himself a Top5 spot in GC and challenging Kritskiy for the fourth place
Actually Martin not only challenges Kritskiy, but passes him on GC, as Kritskiy arrives 2’22 after Herklotz, losing 1’23 to Martin
+ 3’27 for Cattaneo and Tenorio. Tenorio is now completely out of the Top5 fight, while Cattaneo gains a lot of places today to now be 8th in GC
+ 5’06 for Uran and Marquez. The Colombian keeps his seventh place in GC, while Marquez is now in the Top10
+ 6’40 for two Spanish climbers like Intxausti and Abal
+ 7’08 for Alarcon and Eastman
+ 8’19 for Olivier
+ 8’36 for Barguil and Quintana. Terrible day for the Frenchman, who was in the GC Top10 until today, now 1’30 behind Marquez for the last Top10 spot
Even worse for Keinath and Schelling, losing 11’30 to Herklotz and probably all chances of a Top10 finish at the end of the race
The fight for La Vuelta keeps being between 3 riders, but the leader has increased his lead today. 25 seconds behind Herklotz is Phinney, while Madrazo is 43 behind. Martin in fourth is over 4 minutes behind, just a few seconds ahead of Kritskiy, while Tenorio is sixth is already losing 8 minutes, with Uran 7th over 12.
It also looks very likely that Herklotz will win the Points jersey, as he’s already third on that classification, ten points behind the leader Howard
