Yesterday, Warchol was simply the strongest rider of the breakaway. A similar course gives the breakaway another shot at stage victory, even though this time the finish isn’t downhill. Even though it’s uphill, it shouldn’t be a place where red jersey Lecuisinier loses 30” to his nearest rival Tenorio, but it can always happen that the red jersey has an off-day.
As expected, quite a lot of riders join the breakaway of the day. Nineteen to be exact. We have some former stage winners in here, as well as guys who were in the break yesterday. One name that strikes our attention once again is KoM-leader Novak. He is 18 points ahead of number two Smith, who isn’t in this group. As there are only six points available today and many, many more tomorrow, the rider from King Power might have made the smarter move. The other riders in this group are Krigbaum, Prado, Valls, Boonratanathanakorn, Meiler, Campero, Helme, Lane, Mager, Masnada, Koch, Rosch, Serrano, Lastra, Sepulveda, Gaudu, Gabburo and Teuns.
118 km of the 185 today to go as the leaders cross the first intermediate sprint. Like usual in those last days, there is no sprint. Interesting to see is the peloton already more than 10’ behind. At the head of the peloton we see the top-4 teams, as well as EA Vesuvio. They don’t seem to be working very hard though. Valls is the best placed rider in the front group (23rd at more than 26 minutes).
80 km to the finish line as the eighteen leader are ready to dive into the valley before starting today’s finale. The peloton is still 8’45” behind. Bad luck for Krigbaum though, as he suffers the same faith as Velits yesterday and has a flat tyre! He might still make up for it in the long descent though.
The Dane makes it back indeed. We’re back to nineteen leaders, who now pass the second and last intermediate sprint of the day in El Tiemblo, at 45 km from the finish line. The peloton, with everybody in it, at 9’45”.
36 km to go as the leaders start their ascent of the Alto de la Paramera. It’s very long, but the average gradient over 16 km is only just above 4%, which makes it a mountain of second category with only some minor points to get at the top. The peloton, now led by Duolingo, is 8’15” behind the leaders.
10 km to the top for the leading group as four domestiques have been dropped so far: Serrano, Campero, Koch and Gabburo. The peloton, still led by Duolingo, has come closer to 7’30”. Nobody has been dropped there though.
Helme has been instructed by leader Mager and drops four more riders over the next five km. The riders dropped are no amateurs: Masnada, Rosch, Lastra and Gaudu. Nice work by the Fin, and painful affair for Air France – KLM! Peloton still at 7’30”.
Smith will be laughing in the peloton, as Novak is the next victim of Helme. Ten leaders left with 4 km to climb, their names are Krigbaum, Prado, Valls, Boonratanathanakorn, Meiler, Helme, Lane, Mager, Sepulveda and Teuns.
Prado has already won two stages, but the Mexican wouldn’t say no to completing his hattrick. 2.5 km to climb as Krigbaum is the next to be dropped. Nine leaders left and the peloton now at 8’. Five riders have been dropped in the peloton, so nothing special happening there so far.
Teuns and Sepulveda should be a good match for stages like this, but their efforts yesterday and earlier in this Vuelta now really get to them. Together with Meiler they get dropped at 2 km of the top of the Alto de la Paramera, leaving us with six leaders: Prado, Valls, Boonratanathanakorn, Helme, Lane and Mager!
Helme was close to surviving the climb, but has to let the other five leaders go just before the top! The peloton, with still almost all riders present, at 9’30”.
10 km to go to the finish line and 7.5 km before the five leaders start their ascent of the Muralla de Avila! Valls is the strongest climber, Mager the strongest puncheur, Boonratanathanakorn the strongest sprinter, Prado has the experience of winning a stage and Lane has a bit of everything. It’s a free for all for the stage win! The peloton still with 160 riders in it, now crossing the top of the Alto de la Paramera at 11’15”. If they don’t come closer quickly, Valls can dive into the top-15 in the GC.
Just as Helme makes it back with 5 km to go, Mager comes to the head of the leading group for the first time today, attack by the German! Boonratanathanakorn doesn’t trust it and tries to join him!
4 km to the finish line as we have two leaders with a gap of 15” over the four chasers! Of course Helme isn’t helping in the chasing group, maybe he can get a bit of rest and when the two groups come together again be the surprising winner? The Fin could also be getting into the top-3 of the U25-classification today!
3 km to go as Boonratanathanakorn refuses to take over from Mager! The German is furious, their lead remains at 15” as they are close to starting the ascent of the Muralla de Avila!
The two leaders are on the Muralla de Avila and with 1.5 km to the finish line, they remain 13” ahead!
Mager and Boonratanathanakorn survive the Muralla de Avila, and are less than a km away from the stage win! The rider from King Power hasn’t taken over for a second, which is understandable as it’s already very good of him to be able to follow the German. Does he still have a good sprint in him, or will Mager continue leading the race until the finish line?!
Boonratanathanakorn starts his sprint with 400 metres to go and immediately flies by Mager!
And he leaves the German absolutely no chance! King Power wins another stage!
Valls does a good job in the GC by finishing third ahead of Prado, Lane and Helme!
Meanwhile, the peloton is in shambles at 6 km to the finish line after Tenorio’s boys used the wind to wreak some havoc! Red jersey Lecuisinier is where he has to be though, with Hirt also up front.
Teuns wins the sprint for the seventh place against Sepulveda four minutes after stage winner Boonratanathanakorn, while Mager finishes ninth a bit later.
Tenorio leads the peloton with 3.5 km to go. It seems as most of the riders will come back together, as nobody is now really setting the pace here.
6’20” after Boonratanathanakorn, KoM-leader Novak comes in tenth ahead of Krigbaum.
Barta now leading out red jersey Lecuisinier as they enter the last 1.8 km and still have to get up the Muralla de Avila! Tenorio drops back a couple of positions but is still up front, while there are once again several splits! Godoy and Nesset are in the second group, while riders such as Faglum Karlsson, Bouchard, Sosnitskiy, Foliforov, Brambilla, Formolo, Reis, Shikai, Kritskiy, Haig and Galta are in a third group at 1’ of the head of the race! Some top-10 names there, which might cause several changes in the GC!
Hirt could get into the top-5 today and knows it! He seems to be the strongest GC rider with 1 km to go!
Well, who do we have here?! Grosu still believes the green jersey can be his at the end of the Vuelta and managed to survive until this point. He takes the lead in the sprint with 500 metres to go!
He can’t hold on until the end though, and sees how Yates wins the sprint for the 12th place against Bellis and red jersey Lecuisinier. Several other riders finish in the same time, including Tenorio and Gesink.
White jersey Godoy finishes a minute later than Yates and together with the other riders mentioned in the second group earlier, he loses 1’08” to the other favourites up front.
Kritskiy finishes at 2’15” of red jersey Lecuisinier, but is lucky. Together with the other riders mentioned earlier, he loses the same time as Godoy and the others. Looking at the top-10 we see some changes. Kritskiy comfortably remains in third, but now at 2’20” of the red jersey and 1’50” of number two Tenorio. Tvetcov’s dream continues as he jumps to seventh, with Galta and Brambilla dropping one spot. The difference between 7th and 13th ( Warchol) is only a bit more than one minute though, leaving the battle for the top-10 as open as ever tomorrow, in the last mountain stage!
