Lopez Lands His Second Stage Win At This Year's Vuelta

Lopez Lands His Second Stage Win At This Year's Vuelta
19:56, 03 Sep 2017

This Vuelta has shone a light upon some exceptional young talent and Miguel Angel Lopez, who may well be the brightest of those stars, put in a sensational performance to take his second stage of the race and a significant amount of time on the race favourites on what was the toughest stage so far.

A short but explosively packed stage featured three major climbs in succession and three categorised climbs crammed into just 129 kilometres of racing. It started as all of the short distance stages do, with a flurry of attacks to get into the early escape, and it took 35 kilometres for an escape to establish itself.

Luis Mas Bonet (Caja Rural-Seguros RGA), Edward Theuns (Trek-Segafredo), Tom Van Asbroeck (Cannondale-Drapac), Sander Armee (Lotto Soudal), Matteo Trentin (Quick-Step Floors), Stephane Rossetto, Anthony Perez (Cofidis), and Nelson Oliveira (Movistar) were the group that eventually went after just under 40 kilometres.

By this time we were already in Granada, where Mateo Trentin smartly took the points for the day’s sprint to give himself a slight buffer on the second of two big back to back mountain finishes. On the slopes of the Alto de Hazallanas, several teams had a serious interest in making sure the pace was high and that the break didn’t get too much of a chance to escape and riders from Astana, Trek and Bahrain-Merida were all in front on some of the extremely steep initial slopes.

Those same gradients caused the breakaway to split from the moment they hit the hardest slopes, with Tom Van Asbroeck the first to go and the rest of the group being separated by bike lengths as they took matters at their own pace.

The Peloton was not doing much better, with more than half the riders getting dropped as they went over sections that were nearly 22%, with even Diego Rosa amongst the riders struggling although Adam Yates (Orica-Scott) and Romain Bardet (AG2R La Mondiale) went off the front in a bid to catch the day’s break.

Upfront there were cat and mouse games amongst what has one been the breakway, with Sander Armee (Lotto Soudal) catching Stephane Rossetto (Cofidis) whilst Yates and Bardet were joined by Steven Kruijswijk (Lotto NL-Jumbo). They would catch Nelson Oliveira (Movistar) when they had a gap of 1:05over the main group which was already less than 35 riders strong.

Over the top of the Alto de Hazallanas, Armee had 1:25 in hand on Bardet, Yates, Kruijswijk and Oliveira and 3:10 on the red jersey group before a fast and furious descent where the efforts of Luis Leon Sanchez and Astana cut the gap in half before the start of the two final climbs, both locked into each other.

Armee was quickly caught by Bardet, Yates, Kruijswijk and Oliveira on the slopes of the Alto del Purche but the favourites smelled a stage win and soon Trek-Segafredo were pushing Alberto Contador to the front, where he went and was followed by Lopez with 26 kilometres, all of it uphill, to go.  

Nevertheless, the two persisted and they were quickly clear of the main group, with Lopez taking some particularly strong pulls as they set off in search of Romain Bardet. Upfront, Adam Yates had gone clear at the head of the race and had an advantage of 1:35 over the yellow jersey group, and 50 seconds on Contador and Lopez.

Behind, David De La Cruz was swinging on and off the group, with Armee shooting out of the back after coming to the Peloton whilst Steve Kruijswijk was caught by Bardet, Lopez and Contador to make a four-man group. Adam Yates was still powering upfront, having an advantage of 2:30 over the leader’s group.

It was a stalemate in the leader’s group until Vincenzo Nibali went for an attack with 12 kilometres remaining that managed to get a gap of 50 meters but no more on the shallow gradients which gave the advantage to the pace setting of Mikel Nieve and he would eventually be reeled in.

With 10 kilometres left to go Yates still had 1:06 on Contador, Bardet, Kruijswijk and Lopez and 2:06 on the rest, who would catch Thomas de Gendt despite the Belgian’s brave effort.

Yates was beginning to concede time upfront and behind Lopez was driving the group of four chasers, and the pace was so intense that once Kruijswijk lost a bike length he also lost his chances at the same time, with Bardet having to swing around him to keep in touch.

However, ‘Superman’ was about to fly solo and he dropped Bardet and Contador with a powerful single burst that soon had them reeling, and he had one target in his sights, the brave but now fading Adam Yates, and in a matter of 500 metres he was within 20 seconds of the man from Bury.

He would soon join him, urging him for a turn, but he decided to go solo, a wise choice but the only option he had given that Yates, exhausted from a brilliant ride, would turn to a halt when attempting to stay with him.

Lopez built a lead of a minute over the main field, who stayed in the wheel of Wout Poels at great effort. Ilnur Zakarin, to his credit, was the only person who was able to break from his clutches and he set off to cut his losses to Lopez, who would sail over the line to take a brilliant second stage win of the Vuelta and a 10 second bonus that moves him up to 6th, now less than three minutes behind Froome – a fine effort considering that gap was over five minutes less than a week ago.

Zakarin’s charge meant that he could take nine seconds and six bonus seconds on the rest, putting him in a top position heading into the second rest day given his time trial skills. Wilco Kelderman took third ahead of Chris Froome and Esteban Chaves, 45 seconds down on Lopez, whilst Nibali lost a couple of seconds on the Red Jersey in the run to the line.

Fabio Aru’s struggles continued, with a long Tour and a long year perhaps catching up on him, but Michael Woods rode with sense and pride for Cannondale Drapac to finish with the favourites too, keeping himself in the top 10.

The Vuelta has a rest day tomorrow before a crucial time trial on Tuesday, where Chris Froome is expected to extend his lead by minutes.

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