Kristian Sbaragli took the second ever grand tour stage win for MTN-Qhubeka when he came out on top in the reduced bunch sprint that decided a very fast stage 10 of the Vuelta a Espana. After digging deep on the late climb, the Italian made it into a 40-rider group that sprinted for the win and narrowly held off a poorly positioned John Degenkolb (Giant-Alpecin) to claim his first pro win. Tom Dumoulin (Giant-Alpecin) retained the overall lead.

 

One month ago MTN-Qhubeka got a marvelous Tour de France debut when Stephen Cummings took a fantastic stage win on the steep climb in Mende. With increased confidence, they went into their second Vuelta a Espana hoping to repeat that achievement and today they continued their success story when they opened their account in the Spanish race on stage 10.

 

In the Tour, it was a breakaway that had led to the success but in Spain, it was a sprinter that delivered the goods for the African team. And it was not one of their big-name signings Edvald Boasson Hagen, Tyler Farrar, Matthew Goss or Gerald Ciolek but youngster Kristian Sbaragli who came out on top.

 

During the last few seasons, Sbaragli has constantly been fighting to take that elusive first pro win and has gradually increased his level. While also working as a lead-out man for the star sprinters, he has taken his chance in the hilly races where he has used his good climbing legs to survive the challenges and his fast sprint to achieve numerous top results in the sprints.

 

Today it was again that combination that proved to be a successful one as Sbaragli was one of the few sprinters to survive a tough category 3 climb near the finish. In the end, he positioned himself well to narrowly hold off the fast finishing favourite John Degenkolb and open his account on the biggest scene.

 

After a very frantic start with a 40-rider breakaway up the road, everything was back together at the bottom of the final 7km climb which the riders hit with 24km to go. Movistar had been working hard to control things for Jose Joaquin Rojas and it was Andrey Amador and Francisco Ventoso who led the group onto the ascent.

 

 Sergio Henao (Sky) suffered a puncture at the worst possible time and had to work had to make it back to the splintering field as Alessandro Vanotti took over the pace-setting for Astana. Meanwhile, his teammate Mikel Landa was one of the many riders to get distanced.

 

The attacking started when Jerome Cousin (Europcar) took off but he was quickly passed by Alessandro De Marchi (BMC) who was flying up the road. The Frenchman was brought back as the peloton slowed down, with Vasil Kiryienka riding on the front for Sky.

 

This opened the door for new attacks. Romain Sicard was the next Europcar rider to make a move and next Kenny Elissonde (FDJ) and Jerome Coppel (IAM) took off. Meanwhile, Giant-Alpecin took control as they wanted to set Degenkolb up for the win and it was Lawson Craddock who spent most of the day on the front, gradually whittling down the field.

 

With 21km to go, De Marchi was 35 seconds ahead of the peloton and got some welcome assistance from Sicard who joined him. The gap went out to 40 seconds while Elissonde dropped Coppel as they had nearly made contact. The FDJ rider made it up the front group while the IAM rider was dropped.

 

Elissonde made an immediate attack and no one was able to follow him while Craddock continued to whittle down the field, 35 seconds behind. Less than 1km from the top, the American swung off and it was race leader Tom Dumoulin who took over the pace-setting while Gianluca Brambilla (Etixx-QuickStep) took off.

 

Elissonde reached the summit as the first rider but only held a three-second advantage over De Marchi and Sicard. Coppel had been brought back and so Brambilla was next, with Dumoulin leading the peloton over the line 5 seconds further back.

 

Dumoulin rode strongly for most of the descent before Pawel Poljanski took over for Tinkoff-Saxo. Meanwhile, Henao’s bad luck continued as he hit the deck and ended up losing a bit of time.

 

Dumoulin went back to work when the gap had gone out from 10 to 25 seconds but when they hit the flat roads with 8km to go, it was his teammates Luka Mezgec and Koen De Kort who took over. They quickly brought Brambilla back and with 4km to go, the front trio was caught too.

 

Nelson Oliveira (Lampre-Merida) tried the next attack but Mezgec quickly brought him back. Adam Hansen (Lotto Soudal) made a move but this time it was Dumoulin closing it down.

 

Giovanni Visconti (Movistar) accelerated on a small climb 2km from the finish but Jens Keukeleire) shut it down for Orica-GreenEDGE). Hence, the Italian started to ride on the front until De Kort took over.

 

Passing the flamme rouge, Mike Teunissen (LottoNL-Jumbo) made a move but Daniele Bennati (Tinkoff-Saxo) reacted quickly. Luis Leon Sanchez (Astana) was next to try but this time Julien Simon (Cofidis) was the one to react.

 

Degenkolb was in the perfect position behind those riders but when the pace went down, a big group passed them on the other side when Pieter Serry (Etixx-QuickStep) launched a long sprint with Tosh van der Sande (Lotto Soudal) and Sbaragli on his wheel. Hence, the German had to wait to find an opening and start his sprint from 10th position.

 

That turned out to be costly as van der Sande passed Serry and sprinted towards the line. Sbaragli came around the Belgian and narrowly held off Degenkolb who came much faster than everybody else but had to settle for second. Jose Joaquin Rojas (Movistar) completed the podium.

 

It was still a reasonably good day for Giant-Alpecin as Dumoulin defended his 57-second lead over Joaquim Rodriguez (Katusha) in the overall standings. He now gets the chance to enjoy the first rest day as the overall leader before he tackles the hardest test of the entire race. Stage 11 is the queen stage of the race and with six big climbs in just 138km it has been described as the hardest stage in recent grand tour history.

 

A tricky stage

After yesterday’s summit finish, the terrain was significantly easier in stage 10 where the riders tackled 146.6km from Valencia to Castellon. Already after 29km, they reached the top of a category 3 climb but from there the terrain was predominantly flat. In the end, the riders did a 44.6km finishing circuit that included the category 2 climb of Alto del Desierto de las Palmas whose summit was located just 17.1km from the finish and was followed by a descent and a flat section.

 

It was another very hot day in Spain when the riders gathered for the start. All 182 riders that finished yesterday’s stage were present as they headed out for their neutral ride.

 

A furious start

As expected, the race got off to a very fast start with lots of attacks. After 3km of racing, three riders got clear but they only managed to stay ahead for one kilometre before they were brought back. The fast pace was too much for Amets Txurruka (Caja Rural) but the Basque would later make it back to the front.

 

The attacking continued and at the 15km mark it was Vasil Kiryienka (Sky) who launched a strong solo move. While he fought hard to maintain an advantage, a crash split the field, with Angel Vicioso (Katusha) being one of the riders to hit the deck.

 

37 riders get clear

Kiryienka was brought back and instead it was Sylvain Chavanel (IAM) who gave it a try. However, he was brought back at the bottom of the first climb where Caleb Ewan (Orica-GreenEDGE) was dropped right from the lower slopes. The Australian quickly decided to abandon as he had always planned to only do 10 stages of the race.

 

The attacking suddenly created a 37-rider group as Eduard Vorganov, Tiago Machado (Katusha), Tsgabu Grmay, Ruben Plaza (Lampre-Merida), Lawson Craddock (Giant-Alpecin), Imanol Erviti, Andrey Amador (Movistar), Ian Boswell, Salvatore Puccio, Sergio Henao (Sky), Natnael Berhane, Stephen Cummings (MTN-Qhubeka), Dario Cataldo, Luis Leon Sanchez (Astana), Carlos Quintero, Rodolfo Torres (Colombia), Davide Villella, Ben King (Cannondale-Garmin), Angel Madrazo, Pello Bilbao, David Arroyo (Caja Rural),), Cameron Meyer (Orica-GreenEDGE), Matteo Montaguti, Mikael Cherel (Ag2r), Romain Hardy, Daniel Navarro (Cofidis), Larry Warbasse (IAM), Peter Velits, Amael Moinard, Darwin Atapuma (BMC), Jerome Coursin (Europcar), Jurgen Van den Broeck, Maxime Monfort (Lotto Soudal), Carlos Verona (Etixx-QuickStep), George Bennett, Martijn Keizer (LottoNL-Jumbo), Riccardo Zoidl (Trek) and Kenny Elissonde (FDJ) opened up a 20-second advantage 4km from the top. Cousin was dropped and fell back to Johannes Fröhlinger (Giant-Alpecin) and Jay McCarthy (Tinkoff-Saxo) who were chasing, and those three riders were 1.05 behind at the top of the climb. At this point, the peloton had already lost 2.12. Bilbao led Verona and Henao over the top.

 

A 40-rider group is formed

The three chasers managed to bridge the gap to make it a 40-rider group while Giant-Alpecin were chasing 2.30 behind the leaders as Henao was just 3.13 behind Tom Dumoulin in the overall standings. However, there was no cooperation between the escapees as they hit flatter terrain and so Verona and Zoidl managed to get clear. The pair quickly put 45 seconds into their former companions while the peloton was still 2.15 behind.

 

The gap went out to a minute and while Moreno Moser (Cannondale-Garmin) rejoined the peloton after having been involved in the crash, Giant-Alpecin started to get closer. With 85km to go, they were just 1.27 behind the front duo who had lost a big chunk of their advantage that was down to 19 seconds.

 

The break is caught

Five kilometres later, the front duo were brought back and it was again a 40-rider front group that led the race with and advantage of 1.15. Meyer, Bennett, Zoidl, Moinard, Elissonde, Cousin, Sanchez and Boswell were dropped and later Torres and Bilbao also fell back.

 

With 65km to go, Vorganov, McCarthy, Erviti, Puccio, Montaguti and Cummings went clear and were quickly joined by Machado, Hardy, Monfort, Plaza, Craddock, Warbasse, Amador and Atapuma to form a 14-rider front group. However, Giant-Alpecin were still chasing hard with Tom Stamsnijder, Zico Waeytens and Thierry Hupond and as Trek also came to the fore with Markel Irizar, they had brought the gap down to just 20 seconds with 58km to go. Three kilometres later it was all back together.

 

Terpstra makes a move

Hupond, Stmansijder and Waeytens continued to ride hard on the front while a big group with the likes of Elissonde, Kevin Reza and Sbaragli managed to rejoin the peloton which was very nervous. As a consequence, Nicolas Roche (Sky) went down in a crash and had to work hard with Boswell, Henao and Puccio to get back.

 

Irizar took a final turn for Trek but when he swung off with 48km to go, the pace went down. This opened the door for Niki Terpstra, Iljo Keisse (Etixx-QuickStep), Sergio Paulinho, Jay McCarthy (Tinkoff-Saxo) and Leonardo Duque (Colombia) to take off and the Dutchman would quickly leave the rest behind.

 

The chasers are caught

Jimmy Engoulvent (Europcar) managed to join the chase group while Movistar immediately started to chase with Imanol Erviti and Rory Sutherland. Meanwhile, Roche had more bad luck as he had to stop for a wheel change.

 

With 42km to go, Terpstra had put 15 seconds into his chasers and 35 seconds into the peloton from which Geoffrey Soupe (Cofidis) and Mickael Delage (FDJ) bridged across to the chasers. However, it was all in vain as Erviti and Sutherland brought them back with 39km to go after Duque had briefly tried to attack again.

 

Movistar in control

Terpstra was losing ground and when his advantage was down to 15 seconds with 36km to go, he decided to wait for the peloton. At that time a big fight for position had started as the Movistar riders were nearly swarmed by Sky, Astana and FDJ.

 

Erviti and Sutherland got some welcome assistance from teammates Ventoso and Amador. Froome tried to move up to score a few bonus seconds in the intermediate sprint but was too late as the points were taken by Erviti, Sutherland and Ventoso. Moments later, the former two ended their work and it was Amador and Ventoso who led the peloton onto the climb to start the finale.