Now it begins! The hard, high mountains. Today will not be the hardest stage, but it will test the climbers and, really, all the peloton: one category 3 climb, two category 1 and one HC finish are nothing to laugh about. The red jersey chase begins today, in Corvera de Asturias.
The day begins far in the North, in the vicinity of Gijon, close to the Atlantic coast. We’ll go south, to finish on the mythic Angliru, after more than 1200 meters won on the mountain.
Most of the favorites are the GC top 10. We can’t wait for the fight!
58 mountain points to take today. Schinnagel will have to work to defend his white and blue jersey!
The race begins uphill right at the beginning, with the Alto de la Reigada (cat. 3, 12 km, 3,6%). Not too hard to begin, but long enough.
The peloton takes it easy, and let the attacks happen for now, with many distanced climbers going in.
A break of 31 seems to satisfy everyone, with 8 km done. Not the strongest break we had in this race.
As always, with the list of the escapist, comes their best climber classification.
The best placed GC wise is Sosa (13th, +9’03).
The gap with the peloton is 3’30 with 105 km to ride.
The fight for the first mountain points is hard (a bit too hard, knowing what comes next, if you ask me), and Williams is the strongest, ahead of Chamorro and Carpenter.
In the peloton, the main teams working are EA and Duolingo, with some help of Aegon. Gazelle is happy to let them. The gap is 3’40 with 84 km to ride.
No sprint in Proaza, a small town of 700 inhabitants (which is only four times the size of the peloton, when you think of it).
The lead is already down to 2’23. The favorites are not here to play with the break. The Alto de la Cobertoria (cat. 1, 7,9 km, 8,8%), already above the 1000 meters, only begins in 15 km, but the riders already are on a false flat.
As always, Lutsyshyn is dropped in the first slopes. In the break, Munoz attacks with 2 km to climb. He’s followed by Williams.
In the back, big groups are dropped, and the red jersey group, led by Moser, is already down to 76 riders.
Under the 1 km mark, it’s Burke’s turn to attack.
But the 16 points finally are for Jaramillo. Schinnagel is 2nd and Preidler 3rd.
With 44 points, Jaramillo is now 2nd in the best climber competition. Still far from Schinnagel (90 points). The German’s jersey is indeed safe another day.
The climb has scattered the break, and a group of 5 leads the race: Schinnagel, Preidler, Jaramillo, Burke and Nesset.
Munoz, Sequera, Williams and Vosekalns are 40 seconds behind, with Blums coming back on them. The peloton is 3’44 late, as it passes the summit.
The leaders have 13 km to descend before El Cordal (cat. 1, 5,4 km, 9,6%). 34 km to the end of the stage.
The red jersey group, led by Dombrowski himself, is down to 27 men in the descent, with Petelin and Chiarello not far.
Of the top 20, Higuita is missing. He’s in a group of 26, 34 seconds behind.
The climb begins for the 5 leaders. The chasing four are 32 seconds behind. Blums never made it back.
Higuita made it back in the red jersey group.
1,2 km to the top. Jaramillo and Preidler have a gap.
Schinnagel is having a hard time, but we’ve seen his resilience before.
Jaramillo made the perfect climb, and add 16 more points to his score.
Schinnagel manages to take 6 points out of it.
In the peloton, Kudus attacks with the summit in sight. He has 21 km to ride to the finish.
The Eritrean gets a 21 seconds gap in the descent. He’s 3’36 behind Jaramillo, who leads the race, with Preidler 12 seconds behind. Now it’s 4 km downhill, and then the infamous Angliru (HC, 12 km, 10,1%, 19,6% max).
In the 24 men red jersey group, Peters is leading the chase. Higuita has once again been dropped.
Now comes the Angliru!
Before entering hell, let’s have a look at the situation:
– Preidler and Jaramillo lead the race
– They are followed by a group of 3 : Burke, Nesset, and Schinnagel (+1’04)
– Then we have Vosekalns and Williams (+1’25)
– Munoz (+1’41)
– Uran and Blums (+2’16)
– Sosa’s group (+2’43)
– Kudus’ group (+3’32)
– The red jersey group (+3’51)
– The white jersey group (+4’25)
Except Higuita, all the top 20 is with Dombrowski or ahead.
As soon as the red jersey catches his group, Kudus goes at it again. 12 km to climb for him.
He takes over Sosa’s group and has 30’’ on Dombrowski’s group, in which Higuita made it back again.
10 km to climb for the two leaders. Schinnagel’s group is still 1 minute behind, but more worrying for them is that Kudus is closing fast. Only 1’45 late now.
One kilometer later, Kudus overcomes the chasers. He’s got a one minute lead on Dombrowski.
But now, the red jersey thinks that everyone had his chance to shine, and he reacts!
He’s got Yates in his wheel.
8,3 km to climb and in the front, Jaramillo goes alone. Kudus is only 28 seconds behind.
At the same moment, Yates attacks the red jersey!
He was 3rd in the GC, with a 2’30 gap at the beginning of the day.
7 km to climb. It only gets harder now. Jaramillo has 20 seconds on Preidler, and 36 on Kudus and Schinnagel. Yates and Dombrowski have been joined by Chiarello and Godoy.
Eastman and Carthy try to attack as well.
The white jersey’s group, with the other favorites, is nearly 1’ behind Dombrowski.
6,3 km to climb, and Dombrowski’s group joined Kudus and the remains of the break. The red jersey doesn’t wait for a reaction: he attacks immediately!
One kilometer later, and after an heroic day, Jaramillo will be overcome by the red jersey, who has again attacked a reformed favorite’s group.
Higuita and Warchol are dropped.
4 km to climb. The red jersey has 30 seconds on 16 riders. But wait. Somebody is missing and we didn’t see it! Eastman has been dropped from this group and he’s already 1’20 late.
The American is the only one of the top 10 not in the chasing group.
Last 3 km for the red jersey, who’s in slopes over 15%! He’s got 48 seconds on the chasers. Chiarello, Bongiorno and Schinnagel are dropped. Olivier is barely holding in.
2 km to climb. The gap is close to the minute now.
Chasing, we have Carthy, Godoy and Kudus.
Yates and Formolo can’t keep up. Schelling and Latour are further back. Olivier is dropped.
Eastman and Inkelaar are already 3 minutes down. Inkelaar is 30’’ ahead of Higuita and Sosa’s group.
Flamme rouge! Dombrowski’s lead still is around the minute.
And nothing, really, can stop the red jersey. He’s to tired to celebrate, but he wins in solitary! What a show of power!
Carthy manages to find some strength left to sprint for the 2nd place. He loses 1 minute. With him, Kudus tried, but in the end, Dombrowski was too strong. Godoy is 4th.
Yates is 5th, a few seconds ahead of Formolo.
Schelling and Latour lose 2 minutes. They are 7th and 8th.
Olivier is 9th.
Jaramillo manages to sprint for a top 10. He’s ahead of Charello and Primozic, another survivor of the break.
Eastman is 18th. He loses 4 minutes.
Inkelaar is the first of the young rider competition favorites to finish. He’s 19th. This morning, he was 2 minutes behind Higuita. Let’s see whether he did make them up.
Higuita and Sosa arrive together, 6’30 after Dombrowski. Isostar should keep the white jersey one more day, but it’ll be by nothing.
Everybody made it back inside the time limit.
In the GC, Kudus is now 2nd, but the gap with Dombrowski is now 4 minutes. Yates still his 3rd.
All the others are more than 5 minutes behind the red jersey. Let’s see how the teams adapt their strategy now, as they worked quite a bit for Gazelle…
Higuita stays in white for 1’’ on Inkelaar! The gap with Sosa still is 1’13.
Schinnagel managed to keep a 32 points advantage over Jaramillo in the best climber competition.
Gazelle advance got down a bit, but it stays solid for now.
Another big mountains stage tomorrow! Even though it might seems so, the race is not won yet! Let’s hope the next days will be as exciting as today. The runners-up certainly have to be more aggressive than that, if they want to beat Dombrowski.
