Contador wins Vuelta a Burgos title by one second

Alberto Contador (Tinkoff) has shown rising form for the Vuelta a España this August with the narrowest of overall victories in the Vuelta a Burgos, his first stage race since pulling out of the Tour de France this July.

Contador took second on the final stage, a decisive mountain 163-kilometre stage,  behind Caja Rural-Seguros RGA veteran Sergio Pardilla and winning overall in Spain’s biggest stage race outside the WorldTour by a single second.

“It’s been very, very close,” Contador said afterwards. “To tell the truth I had no idea if I could win, my pulse rate was so high I stopped looking and just went for it.”
Contador captured what is - at 32 - his first ever win of his career in the Vuelta a Burgos after the battle for the overall came down to the last, and by far the hardest, climb of the five-day race, the ultra-steep six-kilometre ascent to the summit finish at Lagunas de Neila.

Pardilla attacked a third of the way up the narrow, densely wooded climb to go clear solo with Contador sitting on second wheel in the bunch as Movistar shredded the peloton behind. Lying 31 seconds down on overnight leader Gianni Meersman (Etixx-QuickStep), Pardilla’s gap rose quickly to nearly a minute which would have netted him the race.

Contador’s looming presence in the bunch behind, meanwhile, effectively put a brakes on the chasing, and as the finish line approached, it looked as if Pardilla could take the biggest win of his career.

However, Ben Hermans (BMC Racing), another rider in the fray for the overall, attacked in the last two kilometres where the climb rose to a punishing 20 per cent, Contador followed then, when Hermans started to flail, finally launched his own move.

The stage was almost certainly going to go to Pardilla, but the question was whether Contador, previously 13 seconds back, had left it too late in the day to recapture enough time to claim, the overall victory.

Pardilla - a talented climbing veteran whose 2015 season was wrecked by the same major crash in the Vuelta al País Vasco that also badly injured Peter Stetina (Trek-Segafredo) - calculated his effort well and crossed the line for his first win since a stage of the Volta a Portugal back in 2013.

Contador then finished 17 seconds later and with a five-second margin on a recovering Hermans, just enough to secure the overall victory by one second on Pardilla and the BMC Racing rider. Fourth overall, showing rising form after his recent win in the GP Villafranca-Ordizia in the Basque Country, was Simon Yates (Orica-BikeExchange), just four seconds back, with Pete Kennaugh (Sky) impressing on the climbs and taking a solid fifth place on GC, 11 seconds down.

As Contador said later, although the gaps were very narrow, he is still building his form towards the Spanish Grand Tour, where he confirmed on Saturday that the aim will be to go for a fourth overall win.

After his abandon in the Tour de France and opting out of the Olympic Games, in terms of morale, victory in Contador’s only stage race between July and the Vuelta a España represents a key stepping stone en route to what has become the biggest challenge of his season in a fortnight’s time.

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