Only two days left in this race, but it won’t be easy for anyone to reach the finish line, as just talking about today’s stage, we have a very important mountain stage. No less than 5 climbs in 166 kms, with a HC climb, two Cat.1 and two Cat.2 climbs. The stage starts with Port de Canto, a quite long climb. In the mid-part of the stage we’ll see the “easiest” climb with Montcortes, Coll de la Creu de Perves and Puerto de Esplina. And the final climb is Puerto de Sahun, a HC climb, and then a bit more than 10 kms of downhill to Plan, where the stage finishes
The GC is still pretty much alive, as realistically 3 riders are fighting for winning this race. The leader, Silvio Herklotz, who holds a 46-second lead over Taylor Phinney and a 2’09 lead over Angel Madrazo, who won yesterday in Espinalbet
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When the first climb of the day started, only a few kms after the start of it, already seven riders had attacked from the bunch and formed the breakaway
Alarcon (14th GC +25’00, KoM Leader) Quintana (16th GC +28’14) Olivier (15th GC +28’14) Galta (19th GC +33’10, 2nd KoM) Vosekalns van der Hugenhaben Figueiredo
Alarcon beats narrowly Olivier in the top of Canto, so he sees his 35-points lead over Galta in the KoM standings increased, who couldn’t keep with the sprint of this duo, and was even beated by other 2 riders, so the new gap is 45 points
Port de Canto - Cat.1
Alarcon 16
Olivier 12
Quintana 10
Vosekalns 8
Galta 6
Van der Hugenhaben 4
Figuereido 2
Meanwhile, the bunch, or what is left on the bunch, with less than 90 riders left, is around 3 minutes behind, being led by Puma riders
It has started to heavily rain now, and at some point, Stetina and Egger decided to attack during the downhill of Cantó, and have now joined the breakaway, who is about to start the second climb of the day, Montcortes, with almost 10 kms at 4,5%
Alarcon obviously takes the 10 points available at the top of this climb, and Galta can’t even finish second, as he gets beaten by Stetina. With these points Alarcon has secured to stay on the KoM lead ahead of the final stage, but given that in the final stage there will be like 52 points available at max, the Venezuelan is very likely to secure this jersey today
Montcortes - Cat.2
Alarcon 10
Stetina 8
Galta 6
Egger 4
Olivier 2
This is terrible for Bennelong, as the whole team, including Jack Haig, who is sitting to a GC Top20, has dropped back to the group where Leigh Howard is, despite that the Australian isn’t even in one of the latter groups. I would understand having all the domestiques dropping back with him, but why throw away a potential GC Top20? There will have to be some explanations on this tactics by Bennelong’s DS
Alarcon would again take the points easily in the next climb, Coll de la Creu de Perves, showing that he’s by far the strongest climber in the breakaway, though neither Olivier or Quintana actually fought for the points, so maybe if they are saving some efforts for later, they might outpace the Venezuelan in the final climb. But with the bunch less than 3 minutes behind them, it looks unlikely they’ll be fighting for the stage win
Coll de la Creu de Perves - Cat.1
Alarcon 16
Olivier 12
Quintana 10
Galta 8
Van der Hugenhaben 6
Egger 4
Vosekalns 2
The race is arriving to the penultimate climb of the day, Puerto de Esplina. This is the shortest climb in the stage, with only 5 kms, but with an average of 7%, things could get heated here, if not for the monster climb that it’s left in the stage. Puma keeps doing what they’ve been doing all day, working in the front, with Dunne, Chevrier, Mager... Meanwhile, Stetina isn’t anymore in the breakaway, as he could not recover the time lost in the previous climb
Alarcon with a short acceleration, just to make sure that Olivier wouldn’t contest him the points in this climb, so the gap to Galta in the KoM standings should rise to 63 points, if i’ve done calculations correctly
Puerto de Esplina - Cat.2
Alarcon 10
Olivier 8
Quintana 6
Galta 4
Egger 2
Unless Van der Hugehaben or Figuereido do crazy stuff in the donwhill to the final climb, these five riders are the last riders standing from the original breakaway. They have a solid gap to the bunch now, with over 5 minutes to them, as Puma rode slowing up the last climb
Alarcon, Quintana, Olivier, Galta and Egger
Wow! Bad luck for Cattaneo as he punctures right before the downhill, but the current slow pace and having several team-mates around made him go through it without any problems
The breakaway is starting Puerto de Sahun, the final climb of the day right now. 14,5 km at 7,5%. An easy ride i guess. It looks like these five riders in front will fight for the stage win, as Puma doesn’t show any will of chasing them, with a gap of 5’30 as it stands.
Meanwhile, Haig is already losing 7 minutes to the bunch. The Australian, who last year won a stage in his way to a GC Top15, is looking like he’ll lose even a Top35 spot at the end of the stage at this rhythm
The bunch is already a couple of kms into the climb, and no team seems to want a high pace. Gazelle shouldn’t stay quiet, Madrazo needs to gain 2 minutes on Herklotz, and the German can recover some time in the downhill finish. The gap to the breakaway is already 6 minutes, which gives them certainity that they are fighting for the stage win
Barguil realises that he could have losing 3-4 spots in GC, and attacks with 10 kms left in the climb. No one reacts.
In the front, Olivier is trying to set a high pace to wear down the others, but it doesn’t have visible effects yet, though the gap to the bunch rised to 6’30 now
And there goes Keinath too, which is the signal for Volvo to put a man to work for Intxausti, who obviously doesn’t want to risk his Top10 spot
Only 6 kms to the summit for the leading group, who has lost Egger, who couldn’t ride at this pace for so much time
Barguil has already passed Vosekalns and is getting closer to Figuereido and Van der Hugenhaben, and in the moment that Keinath catches Vosekalns, Martin attacks, as he saw Madrazo hesitating whether attacking or not. Hopefully the trio that fights for GC gives us some spectacle too
And in the front Galta is dropped! Only Alarcon, Olivier and Quintana are left in that front group! A bit more than 4 kms for them, and then the downhill to Plan
There goes Alarcon, for the stage win, for the KoM jersey and even for the GC Top10! Neither Olivier or Quintana seem to be responding to that massive attack
And Puma finally puts the hammer down in the bunch, as Arndt appears in the front with a great pace, trying to chase down Martin
Olivier says goodbye to Quintana and tries to bridge the gap to Alarcon on his own, though those 30 seconds will be too much for the Dutchman i guess. He’s the better descender, but probably not that good enough to overcome such a deficit
You could saw it in the times shown before, but Arndt’s pace has only been followed by 6 other riders, including Herklotz, Phinney, Madrazo and Tenorio!
Martin has finally catched up to Barguil, while Arndt keeps going full gas with now only the 4 GC leaders on his wheel. And Kritskiy, as 5th in GC, is not even bothering to chase them in what’s left in the bunch, where Marquez has attacked from
Tenorio has been dropped when the leaders caught Van der Hugenhaben’s group, and now Keinath and Marquez are chasing the leader’s group, where Arndt is giving his last efforts for Herklotz
Arndt steps aside and Phinney launches his first attack of the day, with a bit over 2 kms to the summit of the climb.
Meanwhile, Olivier is losing a lot of time right now, and Alarcon has already over a minute to him
Alarcon goes over the top of this climb, becoming the KoM winner mathematically, and now has only to take things easy to get his first stage win in this race
Back to the GC fight, that attack of Phinney probably used up all energies that the three riders had, as they all struggle to keep the rhythm while trying to catch Barguil and Martin group
After some slow pace when they caught Martin and Barguil, which allowed Kritskiy, Cattaneo and Tenorio to comeback, Phinney launched an attack again in the final 500 metres of the climb, trying to see if he could break down any of his rivals. But it was actually Martin responding to that attack, making things easier for Herklotz.
But that didn’t work neither, and they all stopped riding when Kritskiy catched them, so it allowed the rest of Top10 riders to get to that group
None of this matters to Jose Alarcon, as he wins the stage in Plan. He’s been attacking for so many days, and finally got the reward for it
Second place for Daan Olivier, who rode a very solid stage, but he was facing a climbing goat like Alarcon, so another good stage result for the team
Nairo Quintana would take a stage podium, finally showing himself in the race, despite being well inside of GC Top20
Galta takes fourth place, after fighting a lot for the KoM jersey in a lot of stages, but it wasn’t meant to be for him
Pretty boring finale for the GC riders, as all of them would arrive in the same group, 5’57 behind Alarcon, led by Arndt, who got a Top5 stage result, ahead of Martin, Phinney and Herklotz, who secures the Points standings with one stage to go
A big day for Alarcon and Hugo Boss, as the Venezuelan won the stage, secured the KoM jersey, but also has entered the Top10 in GC with the time gained today. Now we have 3 riders in 1 second in the battle for 9th place!
So just the Angliru left to stop Silvio Herklotz from winning his first Grand Tour at the age of 24, in his first year as a maxed rider. Unbelievable
