Ben King wins his second stage as Yates takes Red – La Vuelta
2018 Vuelta a Espana
Stage 9
The American rider from Team Dimension Data was the first to cross the line, holding off a chasing Bauke Mollema (Trek – Segafredo), who pushed him hard in the final kilometres.
The red jersey passes to Simon Yates (Mitchelton-Scott), who finished just behind an elite group including Nairo Quintana (Movistar) but, crucially, far enough ahead of Alejandro Valverde(Movistar) to leapfrog the Spaniard into the race lead. Red jersey, Rudy Molard (Groupama FDJ), struggled on the final climb to La Covatilla, shipping major time to the more fancied climbers and tumbling from the general classification. The new top three on GC is Yates, then Valverde at 1 second and Quintana at 14 seconds.
King was visibly exhausted after crossing the line, but will be delighted to head into the race’s first rest day with two stage wins to his name already.
The day’s early racing was defined by a large break of 11, with Thomas De Gendt (Lotto Soudal), Dylan Teuns (BMC) and current polka dot jersey-wearer, Luis Angel Maté (Cofidis), joining their efforts with those of Mollema and King. Maté managed to collect maximum points over the first three categorised climbs, building on his already handsome lead in the mountains classification. He’ll keep the jersey until at least Wednesday, even without adding to his current haul. Completing the 11-strong group were Lluis Mas (Caja Rural), Aritz Bagues (Euskadi – Murias), Kenneth Vanbilsen (Cofidis), Reto Hollenstein (Katusha-Alpecin), Tom Leezer (LottoNL-Jumbo) and Jesus Ezquerra (Burgos-BH).
The break was kept pegged at around 5 minutes of advantage until they were over the third and penultimate climb, at which point the efforts of Groupama FDJ back in the peloton waned dramatically. After spending the first half of the stage with a number of riders prominently placed, the French team was very quickly reduced to just Antoine Duchesne working on the front. As a result, the break’s gap ballooned out to 10 minutes, all but guaranteeing a stage victor from the escape. Looking back at this stage, Groupama may regret expending so much energy in defence of the jersey – especially given Thibauit Pinot’s GC ambitions.
With 17 kilometres remaining, King forged on solo, opening up around a minute on his erstwhile breakaway companions. No organised chase formed and by the time Mollema launched his own one-man chaseback effort, it was already too late. King, who suffered mightily on the steepest 12% gradients of the La Covatilla climb, was strong enough to stay away.
Further down the mountain, meanwhile, it was a rare attack from Colombian climber Quintana that set the fireworks off in the battle for GC. His powerful burst to bridge to Wilco Kelderman (Team Sunweb) set the cat among the pigeons, shaking loose all but Ion Izagirre (Bahrain Merida), Miguel Angel Lopez (Astana), Rigoberto Uran (EF Education Drapac) to create an extremely elite quintet. Quintana, Lopez and Kelderman registered the same time, with Uran three seconds behind and Izagirre a further three again. Yates’ final placing was just enough to creep into the leader’s jersey.
The day’s big loser, other than Molard, was Michal Kwiatkowski. While the Pole has never been considered a ‘pure’ climber, he may have harboured some hopes of riding back into red today. Instead, the Team Sky rider drops down the classification after losing two minutes to Quintana and co.
Tomorrow is a rest day, the first of this year’s Vuelta. On Tuesday the peloton will tackle a flat 177km from Salamanca to Bermillo de Sayago.
