Pais Vasco: Rosa wins in Arrate

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Diego Rosa (Astana) had plenty of time to consider his celebration as he took an impressive solo victory on stage 5 of the Vuelta al Pais Vasco. The 27-year-old Italian threw his arms up in victory as he entered the final 250 metres before coming to a complete halt before the line and walking across it with the bike held aloft.

Rosa had been solo for over half of the stage, jumping clear of an 18-rider breakaway group after just 41km of racing, well over 100 kilometres to the finish. He quickly built up a substantial lead and the stage win never looked in threat as his advantage remained above the three-minute mark. At more than 14 minutes down on the race leader, he was never a real threat to the main favourites while several others tried and failed to chase him down.

The strongest chase down of the Italian was by the Lotto-Soudal pairing of Sander Armee and Maxime Monfort but they were unable to do enough to make any real dent in the advantage. Rosa took his first major victory at Milano-Torino last year but his victory into Eibar is the biggest of his career.

Behind him, the battle for the overall classification took hold with Wilco Kelderman hoping to retain the leader’s jersey he claimed on stage four. LottoNL-Jumbo did much of the pace setting over the early climbs, but it was down to the Dutchman to fend for himself as they hit the last two ascents of the day.

Mikel Landa was the first to strike out from the group of favourites, linking up with his teammate David Lopez who had been in the break early in the day. They picked up Simon Clarke (Cannondale) too and forged a small lead, putting Landa back into the race lead on the road. It didn’t hold and they were reeled in on the final climb of Arrate. As the final Tinkoff rider peeled off the front of the group, Alberto Contador took it up for himself and immediately made a gap on the other favourites.

Only Sergio Henao was able to stick with him and the two began their own duel for the overall classification. Thibaut Pinot (FDJ) led the chase with Joaquim Rodríguez (Katusha), who had looked strong on the previous ascent. Pinot’s teammate Sebastien Reichenbach was joined him, as did – at first – the race leader. Kelderman looked in trouble early on in the final climb but dug deep to try and keep in the wheel tracks of Pinot. He finally popped with two kilometres to go and paced himself to the finish along with Landa.

Ahead, Contador and Henao pushed on and built up a gap of a minute over Kelderman. The two seemed happy to work together until Henao attacked with two hundred metres to go. He didn’t make any time on Contador but ensured he moved into the race lead, with a six-second gap to Contador. Rodriguez and Pinot had the pair in their sights and lost just two seconds to them in the end.

Nairo Quintana (Movistar) had a very quiet day in the saddle and rolled in 27 seconds down on Contador and Henao. Former race leader Kelderman lost more than a minute and slid down the overall classification to eighth place.

It is still all to play for in the final 16km time trial with just over 30 seconds separating the top 5.

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