Stage Results and Tomorrow’s Stage Preview
Stage 19 of the 2018 Vuelta heated up with a full stage of mostly uphill climing from Lleida to Col de la Rabassa. The glory on the day went to Thibaut Pinot of Groupama-FDJ as he made it to the top of the Col de la Rabassa first, but he was only 5 seconds ahead of Simon Yates who finished second. This allowed Yates to extend his lead in the general classification. Steven Kruijswijk of LottoNL-Jumbo finished third in the stage which also took him into third as well in the general classification.
Simon Yates has lived in the area since 2015, and knows the roads of the stage well, so it was no surprise that he was still in the mix by the end of the stage. Attacks came from all in the openning part of the stage but it was not until the 40km mark that a break of 3 riders were able to get away from the peloton. They were caught back into the main group not too long into the stage. The peloton remained together until the final 34km of the stage where Team Movistar made an attack, with the hope to get Valverde back into contention of the overall classification.
They managed to string the peloton out and without Yates in the front, there was a worry they would break clear, but this was all without any real issue as Michelton-Scott kept their cool and made sure they were brought back to the peloton. Quintana, Kruijswijk and Pinot made abreak without only 13km to go and Yates was able to close the gap and ride with the group. Valverde tried to also make his way to this group but was not successful.
With only 3km to go, the group had a leave of almost a minutes, and in the final stretch Pinot was able to distance himself from Yates and the other riders to make his way to the finish line for the day.
Overall classification after stage Nineteen
With Yates extending his lead in the overall classification, it will be interesting to see how the rest of the general classification contenders respond. Valverde is now over 90 seconds behind Yates, and he can't really rest on his laurels as he only has a 20 second lead now on Kruijswijk who moved into third after todays stage.
- Simon Yates (GBr) Mitchelton-Scott at 76 hours 44 minutes 41 seconds
- Alejandro Valverde (Spa) Movistar Team at 1 minutes 38 seconds
- Steven Kruijswijk (Ned) LottoNL-Jumbo at 1 minute 58 seconds
Tomorrow - Stage 20 From Escaldes Engordany to Coll de la Gallina
Stage 20 of the 2018 Vuelta a Espana will only be a 97km ride from Escaldes Engordany to Coll de la Gallina, but it will be one of the toughest with more than 3,000m of vertical climbing. The stage will only have one flat section as riders will take on their first climb from first kilometer. The first climb will not be their hardest but it will stretch almost 5km at an incline of 6.8% incline, the bad news is that it will be one of the easiest of the day.
The climbs and decents will continue through the course of the day until riders reach their final climb of the day at Coll de la Gallina, which is widely regarded as Andorra's most difficult climb. The final climb will be close to 8km at 7.8% incline but does include some double digit incline switch backs leading to the summit. The first three riders of the stage will receive time bonuses of 10, 6 and 4 seconds.
I'll be covering each stage of the Vuelta A Espana, giving a breakdown of each days stage, my previous post for @cyclefeed were the results of stage eighteen of this years Vuelta, so feel free to have a look:
@run.vince.run/a-fast-finish-to-stage-18-of-the-2018-vuelta
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Please Note all maps are made by myself using Strava