This year’s Vuelta al Tachira is closed by a 16 km flat ITT. There’ll be two races in one today: the TT specialists will fight for the stage win, the stage racers for the GC, though it’s not for the win anymore as Kozhatayevs 3 minute lead should be enough in any case.
Quaade is the first rider to set a bar for the TT specialists. He finishes in 19’18.
Predatsch is the first one to endanger the Dane’s time. He beats it with 19’04.
Viennet is one of the favourites for today. He lives up to it and is the first rider under 19 minutes: 18’53.
Campenaerts misses the best time by 12’’.
Sterbini is 2nd at the finish, he’s 6’’ down.
Dumoulin finishes in provisional 5th with a gap of 19’’.
Frison is 11’’ down, that’s enough for a provisional 4th place.
Politt only loses 4’’ and comes in 2nd. This could be good enough for a stage podium.
Knotten is even faster, but misses the best time by a mere second.
Cheung is 15’’ down.
Van Moer is the last of the TT specialists with a chance to win today. And he beats the best time by fractions, setting the bar to 18’52.
After the fight for the stage win is probably settled we now have the GC to look at. With only 1’36 between 2nd and 11th prior to the stage this are also the riders we’ll look at before Kozhatayev is on his cours d’honneur.
Borisavljevic loses 28’’. We’ll see if that’s enough to gain a position in the GC and end in the top 10.
He does as Campero loses 1’08 and thus drops out of the top 10.
Elosegui loses 41’’ today. That’s just enough to take over the provisional GC lead.
He doesn’t hold it for long as Carapaz is the new leader though being 2’’ slower today.
Bennett is the worst TTer in the top 10 and he proves so by losing 1’35.
Vanhoucke finishes 40’’ down to the best time and takes over the provisional lead, meaning he’ll be 6th at worst in the end.
Iturria finishes in the same time and will be 5th at worst.
Arensman only loses 28’’ today and takes the GC lead for now. He’ll only need to gain one position for the GC podium.
And he gains the position as Lemus Davila loses 13’’ to him, but had only a 1’’ adavantage.
But the Mexican will be on the podium nonetheless as Smith loses 1’08 today and will drop some places. It’ll come down to the fractions if he’ll finish 5th or 6th in the GC.
And finally it’s time for Kozhatayev to present his yellow jersey. He loses 40’’ today, but that doesn’t really matter anymore.
Congratulations to Van Moer for winning the final stage!
And even bigger congratulations to Kozhatayev for a surprising GC win! All other classification leaders stayed in front too.
[C2] Vuelta al Tachira 
