Nicolas Roche saved what has been a disappointing Vuelta a Espana for Sky when he came out on top in from a breakaway in the hilly stage 18 of the race. Having joined an early 25-rider group, he joined forces with Haimar Zubeldia (Trek) on the final climb before beating the Basque in the two-rider sprint. Fabio Aru (Astana) attacked repeatedly but was unable to drop Tom Dumoulin (Giant-Alpecin) who defended the overall lead.

 

When the team arrived in Marbella for the start of the Vuelta a Espana three weeks ago, Sky had big goals. They wanted to win the race with Chris Froome and things were looking very promising on the first rest day where their leader had been close to a stage win and the team had played with its muscles on the climb.

 

However, things unraveled when Froome crashed out of the race and as Nicolas Roche and Sergio Henao also hit the deck in crashes, they were suddenly left with Mikel Nieve as their only GC contender. Hence, they had to reset their goals, with stage wins, a top 10 for Nieve and the team classification being the objectives.

 

The team had disappeared into anonymity for a few days but today they managed to save their race when Roche bounced back from injury by winning a highly entertaining stage 18. The Irishman had been strong to join a big 25-rider breakaway after a frantic first hour of the race and in the end he turned out to be the strongest.

 

Nicolas Roche (Sky), Sebastien Minard (Ag2r-La Mondiale), Darwin Atapuma (BMC), José Gonçalves, Ángel Madrazo (Caja Rural-Seguros RGA), Cyril Lemoine, Dominique Rollin (Cofidis), Pieter Serry (Etixx-Quick Step), Arnaud Courteille (FDJ), Simon Pellaud, Vicente Reynés (IAM Cycling), Kristijan Durasek (Lampre-Merida), Bart De Clercq, Adam Hansen, Tosh Van der Sande (Lotto-Soudal), José Joaquín Rojas (Movistar), Songezo Jim (MTN-Qhubeka), André Cardoso (Cannondale-Garmin), Jerome Cousin, Cyril Gautier (Europcar), Eduard Vorganov (Katusha), Tim Roosen (LottoNL-Jumbo), Daniele Bennati, Pawel Poljanski (Tinkoff-Saxo) and Haimar Zubeldia (Trek) were the riders on the offensive and it was Gautier who escaped from that group to enter the final 25km with an advantage of 20 seconds over a chase group. The hilly stage was tougher than the profile suggested and Jim, Bennati, Rollin, Pellaud, Lemoine and van der Sande had already been dropped at this point.

 

In the peloton, Astana had decided to make things hard and the main group had already been whittled significantly down when they hit the final category 1 climb at this point in the stage. It was Luis Leon Sanchez who set the pace of the small group as they were working to prepare an attack for Fabio Aru.

 

Atapuma took off in pursuit of Gautier as there was no cooperation in the chase group. He was quickly brought back though but was again part of the action when he escaped with Cardoso, Serry and Durasek.

 

Andrey Zeits took over the pace-setting for Astana which made the peloton explode even more. Diego Rosa took over and brought the gap to Gautier down to 1.50 with 20km to go as they brought Pellaud, Rollin, Jim and Pellaud back.

 

The four chasers were brought back and next it was Roosen who made an unsuccessful attempt to bridge the gap. That’s when Zubeldia decided to make things hard and when he hit the front of the chase group, it exploded to pieces.

 

In the peloton, Zeits took one final turn before Dario Cataldo took over. He rode full gas to whittle the group down to 15 riders before Aru made his move. However, Dumoulin was glued to his wheel and Rodriguez, Moreno, Quintana, Valverde, Majka and Chaves were also able to keep up with him. Nieve and Meintjes were next and then Pozzovivo and Jeandesboz.

 

Aru continued to ride hard without looking back and surprisingly, only Dumoulin was able to match his speed. The pair rode away from the rest until Aru slowed down which allowed Majka, Quintana and Chaves to get back.

 

Aru was relentless and made another unsuccessful attempt but as he sat down Moreno, Rodriguez and Valverde also got back. Just as Nieve, Pozzovivo and Meintjes were almost there too, Valverde was the next to try but as Aru accelerated again, he brought the Spaniard back.

 

Further up the road, Gautier had been caught and it was Roche and Cousin who had taken off. The Irishman dropped his companion while Zubeldia took off in lone pursuit.

 

There was no cooperation in the main group from where Majka, Chaves and Meintjes all tried to escape. The Colombian got clear and was joined by Valverd while Nieve took off in pursuit.

 

Chaves and Valverde got a 15-second advantage which forced Moreno to chase hard. As the gap narrowed, Majka joined Nieve and they made it across to the pair of GC riders

 

With 15km to go, Moreno brought the group back and as the pace went down, Brambilla, Jeandesboz and Visconti got back. Nieve tried to attack twice before Aru made another unsuccessful move.

 

Nieve finally got clear while further up the road, Zubeldia rejoined Roche. They were chased by a bigger group of Goncalves, Rojas, De Clercq, Cardoso, Poljanski, Cousin, Atapuma, Hansen, Madrazo and Courteille from where Goncalves took off in pursuit.

 

Nieve got a 15-second advantage but as Visconti started to work for Movistar, he was losing group

Valverde was the next to attack and was joined by Majka but as Aru made another move, it came back together. That was enough to bring Nieve back while Brambilla, Jeandesboz and Vusconti were again dropped.

 

A relentless Valverde tried again before he hit the front as they approached the top. Roche led Zubeldia over the summit 23 seconds ahead of Goncalves while Chaves was first from the main group 53 seconds behind the leaders.

 

Valverde rode hard on the descent before Quintana made a short-lived move. With 8km to go, they caught the big chase group while Goncalves was desperately trying to close his 20-secondg gap.

 

The front duo worked well together while Poljanski took over the pace-setting in the main group until they hit a small climb with 4km to go. Here Moreno attacked and only Majka, Valverde, Dumoulin and Chaves could match his pace.

 

Dumoulin realized that Aru had been dropped and briefly tried to keep the move alive but it all came back together. Hence, Poljanski again took over the pace-setting.

 

Moments later Roche led Zubeldia under the flamme rouge. The Basque came through for another turn before the Sky rider again took over. He rode strongly on the front and launched a long sprint from the first position. Zubeldia didn’t have the power to even try to come around and had to settle for second while Goncalves took third. In the peloton, Rojas did the lead-out for Valverde who easily beat Chaves and Rodriguez in the sprint for fourth.

 

Dumoulin rolled across the line in 15th to defend his 3-second lead over Aru. He faces another hilly stage tomorrow where the riders will tackle a flat first half before they get to a category 3 and category 2 climb. The final summit is located 19km from the finish and then it is the classic small cobbled climb that leads to the finish in Avila after a long descent.

 

A hilly stage

After yesterday’s time trial, the climbers for an immediate chance to strike back in stage 18 which brought the riders over 204km from Roa to Riaza. After a flat start, the riders tackled two smaller climbs at the midpoint but it was the category 1 Puerto de Quesera in the finale that was expected to be a challenge. The top was located just 13km from the finish and from there it was a downhill run to the line.

 

It was a sunny day in Spain when the riders gathered for the start. Five riders were absent as Niki Terpstra (Etixx-QuickStep) and Jurgen Van den Broeck (Lotto Soudal) had gone home to prepare for the World Championships, Peter Velits (BMC) and Andrew Talansky (Cannondale-Garmin) were suffering from fatigue and Cameron Meyer (Orica-GreenEDGE) broke his collarbone yesterday.

 

Lots of attacks

Right from the start, an Etixx-QuickStep rider launched the first attack and after a hectic first phase, a 15-rider group was formed. However, that group was brought back and the attacking continued, with Colombia and LottoNL-Jumbo being particularly aggressive.

 

At the 15km mark, 18 riders got clear but they had no luck and instead it was an 8-rider group that got clear. More riders joined the move and when it had swelled to 30 riders, Cannondale-Garmin started to chase hard. Suddenly, 52 riders had gathered in the front but Giant-Alpecin managed to bring it back together at the 31km mark.

 

The break is formed

The attacking continued and this was too much for Pierre Rolland (Europcar) who was distanced. While he fought hard to rejoin the peloton, five riders got clear but they only managed to stay away for five kilometres.

 

At the end of an hour and 50.4km of fast racing, no one had managed to get clear and finally Rolland made it back to the bunch after the frantic chase. Finally, the elastic snapped when 25 riders managed to escaped and as Giant-ALpecin took control, the gap quickly went out to more than 3 minutes.

 

MTN-Qhubeka start to chase

Nicolas Roche (Sky), Sebastien Minard (Ag2r-La Mondiale), Darwin Atapuma (BMC), José Gonçalves, Ángel Madrazo (Caja Rural-Seguros RGA), Cyril Lemoine, Dominique Rollin (Cofidis), Pieter Serry (Etixx-Quick Step), Arnaud Courteille (FDJ), Simon Pellaud, Vicente Reynés (IAM Cycling), Kristijan Durasek (Lampre-Merida), Bart De Clercq, Adam Hansen, Tosh Van der Sande (Lotto-Soudal), José Joaquín Rojas (Movistar), Songezo Jim (MTN-Qhubeka), André Cardoso (Cannondale-Garmin), Jerome Cousin, Cyril Gautier (Europcar), Eduard Vorganov (Katusha), Tim Roosen (LottoNL-Jumbo), Daniele Bennati, Pawel Poljanski (Tinkoff-Saxo) and Haimar Zubeldia (Trek) formed the move while Giovanni Visconti (Movistar) tried to bridge the gap. However, he was already 2.30 behind the front group and quickly decided to sit up.

 

The gap went out to more than 6 minutes before MTN-Qhubeka started to chase at the 76km mark as Bart De Clercq was a threat to Louis Meintjes in the GC. At the bottom of the first climb, they had reduced the gap to 6.10.

 

KOM points for Madrazo

When Madrazo led Zubeldia and Hansen over the top, the gap was 5.30 and it stabilized around that mark as MTN-Qhubeka continued to chase. Madrazo was again first at the top of the second climb, followed by Courteille and Cardoso.

 

Tom Stamsnijder (Giant-Alpecin), Natnael Berhane and Johann van Zyl (MTN-Qhubeka) had been given the task to set the pace in the field and they kept the gap around the 6-minute mark for a while. The Eritrean champions ended his work with 80km to go where Jaco Venter took over.

 

Giant-Alpecin stop their work

With 70km to go, the gap was down to 4.55 and several riders were suffering in the hilly terrain. Meanwhile, van der Sande briefly got a small gap on a descent but he decided to wait for his chasers.

 

Stamsnijder stopped his work, leaving it to the MTN-Qhuveka pair to set the pace. They were losing ground though and the gap was back 5.30 with 60km to go.

 

Astana take control

Five kilometres later Astana decided that it was time to do some damage. Zeits hit the front but at first he was not really going full gas. The gap was still 5.16 when Rollin led Serry and Cardoso across the line in the intermediate sprint with 47km to go.

 

The terrain was now getting harder and this prompted Zeits and Alessandro Vanotti to go full gas. As a consequence, several riders were getting dropped and the gap was down to 4 minutes with 40km to go.

 

Rodriguez attacks

Lotto Soudal had strength in numbers so they decided to sacrifice van der Sande who did most of the work in the front group. However, he didn’t get much help and the gap was still coming down.

 

With 36km to go, Angel Vicioso attacked for Katusha and when he had opened a 15-second advantage, Rodriguez took off. He quickly joined his teammate but Dario Cataldo neutralized the move for Astana. As a consequence, the peloton exploded to pieces but as more riders were allowed to rejoin the group, it swelled to around 50 riders.

 

The break splits up

The gap was down to 3 minutes with 33km to go where Hansen and van der Sande worked hard in the front group and Mikel Landa and Zeits did the work in the peloton. Three kilometres later it was only 3.05.

 

The terrain started to take its toll as Jim, Rollin, Bennati, Pellaud were all dropped from the front group. As they went down a small descent, Gautier and van der Sande got a gap but the latter cracked as soon as they started to climb again. The Frenchman had a 20-second advantage with 25km to go where Zeits and Landa were still setting the pace to prepare the exciting finale.