As the old saying goes, “When the going gets tough, the tough get going.” Aqua-Blue Sport have certainly taken that to heart, and the team that had their bus burned only a few days ago took a debut Grand Tour stage win atop the infernal Los Machucos, holding off the best climbers in the race thanks to the heroic Stefan Denifl, who was the strongest man by a mile out of the day’s breakaway.
Behind there was a fight amongst the top 10 contenders and plenty of significant gaps too, with the Red Jersey of Chris Froome losing 42 seconds and more on many of his rivals, a gap that would have been significantly larger had it not been for the expert help of Mikel Nieve for the last four kilometres. Alberto Contador, determined to give everything in his last Grand Tour, was a fine second, having attacked on the steepest slopes before attempting to chase down the winner and failing by only eight seconds, whilst putting 50 seconds and more into his top 10 rivals.
That was the amazing end to a day which started in typical Vuelta fashion, with many attacks to get into the break of the day. Eventually, it would be the group of Davide Villella (Cannondale-Drapac), Alessandro De Marchi (BMC), Christopher Juul Jensen (Orica-Scott), Dani Moreno (Movistar), Stefan Denifl (Aqua-Blue Sport) and also Julian Alaphilippe (Quick-Step Floors) getting a huge 9:10 after the first 66km.
It had looked as if they would fight out the stage win for sure, but several teams who were not in the break had other ideas and Astana were quickly on the case, supported by Bora, riding for Majka.
¿Qué quieres que le preguntamos al vencedor de etapa? #LV2017
Davide Villella would lose contact in the dire conditions on the descent of the Portillo de Lunada, leaving the rest of the break to push on with a reduced advantage of 3:33 over the head of the peloton. At the intermediate sprint in Solares, Julian Alaphilippe took the honours but the peloton was closing and by the time they all took the Puerto de Alisas the lead was down to just 2:20.
The tactical move of Adam Yates to jump away with Esteban Chavez sparked the peloton into action and the gap tumbled to 90 seconds despite the fact that there were four kilometres left before the top of the climb, and several others tried to go in a move that was eventually reeled back in by Sky.
The descent had looked treacherous earlier in the day but thankfully the fog head cleared the roads had dried, making the approach to the final climb a lot less dangerous than one could have imagined a few hours earlier. This allowed Magnus Cort Nielsen and Jack Haig to jump from the peloton and get a small gap before the peloton was on the infernal opening slopes.
Los Machucos began with double digit slopes and went further from there. It was Dani Moreno who moved first from the break, although Stefan Denifl was able to go with him easily with Julian Alaphilippe still on their coattails. De Marchi began to struggle as the pace rose and soon the peloton were now on some of the toughest early slopes, and when the ramps hit 15 Miguel Angel Lopes made his move, followed by Contador.
Upfront, Denifl went and dropped his other companions with a full 5 kilometres to go during the climb, going for stage glory; Nibali, Kelderman, Woods and Zakarin began to chase, with a small gap opening between them and Froome, surrounded by team-mates including Poels, Moscon and Nieve.
Alberto Contador had more in his locker and then went onwards, managing to drop Lopez and quickly pass De Marchi after the small descent in the middle of the climb. Before long there was less than a minute between him and the leader and he had distanced Alaphilippe and Haig, bearing down on the Austrian out in front.
Froome, in a repeat of his struggles up the climb towards Preyagudes at the Tour, was beginning to struggle and soon was a minute behind Contador and losing time to his main podium rivals around him. The surge of Ilnur Zakarin did not help matters, given that Nibali was able to follow him, and Mikel Nieve was now his engine whilst Miguel Angel Lopez had been absorbed by the other group of GC men.
Denifl was too far out in front, however, and had time to celebrate – and deservedly so - before rolling across the line for the stage win. Contador was closing fast, and finished second, but more importantly well ahead of the rest of the other overall contenders, led by Miguel Angel Lopez, who took four bonus seconds on Zakarin, Woods, Kelderman and Nibali. Nibali had a fine day, cutting the gap on Froome to 1:16, essentially engaging the advantage that the Brit had managed to eke out thanks to the time trial yesterday, whilst Contador could possibly dream of a podium place too.
No stage left before Madrid is easy, but surely this will all come down to the Angliru on Saturday to decide who wins this Vuelta.
