Alejandro Valverde sprints to stage 8 victory – La Vuelta
2018 Vuelta a Espana
Stage 8
The rolling stage featured the last La Vuelta action in the south of the country before a long overnight transfer north for Sunday’s stage, and the undulating parcours set up the potential for a big breakaway. An elite raiding party never materialised, however, with just three escapees forging on from kilometre zero.
The break had opened up a big gap (the advantage maxed out at 12 minutes) by the halfway point, but the sprint teams of Bora Hansgrohe, Cofidis and Trek – Segafredo, had earmarked this as one of just a handful of opportunities in the race and – despite the large early advantage – reeled them back in with quite some intensity, setting up a big sprint finish as the road snaked into Almaden.
The uphill drag to the line seemed perfectly suited to the punchier abilities of Peter Sagan, who launched his sprint with 150 metres remaining, only to be caught by the green-clad 38-year-old Valverde, who took his second stage win of the race. Danny van Poppel came across the line in third.
Much had been made of the technical finish and it was clear from about 10km out that the best-placed teams going into the last two turns would be the ones to contest the finish. Young Spanish rider, Ivan Cortina (Bahrain Merida) was the first to light things up, but faded in the final 200m – eventually placing ninth. As Sagan, van Poppel and Valverde came past, it seemed certain the Slovakian Bora rider would take the victory, but Valverde managed to find something extra to nudge his wheel in front as the pair crossed the line.
Van Poppel, who was second on stage six, will be slightly frustrated with his continued run of podiums – particularly after his LottoNL-Jumbo team worked so hard to deliver him to the line in prime position. Fourth across was Ion Izagirre (Bahrain Merida), followed by Trek – Segafredo’s sprinter Giacomo Nizzolo. Jesus Herrada (Cofidis), Simon Yates (Mitchelton-Scott), Bjorg Lambrecht (Lotto Soudal), Cortina and Steven Kruijswijk (LottoNL-Jumbo) rounded out the top ten.
Noticeably absent from the final shake-out was Elia Viviani, who lost contact with his leadout in the final run-in and was unable to recover significantly enough to take part in the sprint. He rolled over the line eventually a minute behind Valverde.
The complexion of the GC changes little after the day’s racing, with Rudy Molard still enjoying his days in red, but his advantage over Valverde is reduced to 37 seconds after the Spaniard grabbed time bonuses for winning the stage.
omorrow represents the first major day in the general classification battle, as the riders race from Talavera de la Reina to a summit finish at La Covatilla. As such, it was no surprise to see the overall contenders take things relatively easy for the bulk of the day – leaving things to the three escapees, Tiago Machado (Katusha-Alpecin), Jorge Cubero (Burgos-BH) and Héctor Sáez (Euskadi-Murias).
With just one category 3 climb on the whole stage route, Luis Angel Mate still leads the mountains classification comfortably. Valverde’s stage win extends his lead in the points classification, he’s 13 points ahead of Sagan. Ben King continues his time in the lead of the combined classification.
The stage saw the Vuelta’s first abandon, with Maurits Lammertink (Katusha-Alpecin) heading home due to abdominal pains.
