Vuelta a Andalucia: Lobato beats Degenkolb to win stage 2

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Juanjo Lobato (Movistar) dusted off his bruises from yesterday’s crash to win the second stage of the Vuelta a Andalcuía with a well-executed long-range sprint. The Andalucían-born rider fell heavily in a pile-up on stage 1a but today recovered to steal a march on John Degenkolb (Giant-Alpecin), who was second by some distance.

The 191km route from Utrera to Lucena featured the short category 3 climb of Primera Cruz that peaked six kilometres from the line and shrunk the peloton by a third. A spate of short-lived attacks went on the climb and on the descent into Lucena, including one within two kilometres from race leader Alberto Contador (Tinkoff-Saxo).

Degenkolb emerged from the Spaniard’s wheel and set up shop behind two CCC Sprandi Polkowice riders, only to be caught off guard when Lobato flung himself down the right from 300m. The German gave chase but couldn’t track him down and the comfortable winning margin of three bike lengths would have been greater had Lobato not slowed to celebrate.

It is Movistar’s second success in two days after Javier Moreno time trialled to victory in stage 1b. Despite Contador’s brief stint off the front there was little action as far as the general classification was concerned, but Chris Froome (Team Sky) moved up into third after Bob Jungels (Trek Factory Racing) lost time.

The long and largely flat stage – lasting nearly five hours – was an uneventful affair until the final 15km. A five-man break - Nick Dougall (MTN-Qhubeka), Adrian Honkisz (CCC Sprandi Polkowice), Aleksandr Komin (RusVelo), Pirmin Lang (IAM Cycling), Sjoerd van Ginneken (Roompot) - went shortly after the flag dropped and, having opened up a gap of five minutes, was allowed to stay out until 20km remained.

As riders hit the climb, which reached 6.5 per cent in parts, the attacks predictably started to come and Nicolas Edet (Cofidis) went off in search of mountain classification points. After cresting, Carlos Quintero (Team Colombia) and Mirko Selvaggi (Wanty-Groupe Gobert) were the next to go, with Peter Kennaugh (Team Sky), in a brief break from pacing Froome, also having a mini-dig.

Lobato took advantage of the fast and furious closing stages to take his second win of the season, building on his stage win at the Tour Down Under in January.

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