Vuelta a Burgos: Miguel Angel Lopez wins on Picon Blanco

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Miguel Angel López (Astana) triumphed atop Picón Blanco on stage 3 of the Vuelta a Burgos, taking the overall lead of the five-stage race in the process. The Colombian edged out Ivan Sosa (Androni Giocattoli) in a dramatic conclusion to the first high-mountain summit finish, with David de la Cruz (Team Sky) finishing third, 32 seconds back.

López had attacked four kilometres from the summit of the 8.5km final climb, taking advantage of the steepest section of a vicious ascent that averaged 9.1 per cent gradient, and had shaken off his rivals with another attack a kilometre later. He looked like he was heading for victory until Sosa sprang clear from the chase and rapidly made his way across in the final kilometre. The pair went side-by-side through the steep final couple of hundred metres, with López shading it on the inside as the road curved towards the line.

"It was a hard day, while on the last climb there was a very strong front wind. In a moment when the wind calmed down a bit, I decided to attack," Lopez explained. "I’ve got an advantage, but it was not easy at all to fight against front wind alone during all the way to the top. Yeah, later Sosa caught me, but in the end, I just did my best to hold on his wheel and to win the sprint. That’s true, I am not in my top form yet, but looks like everything is going by plan for the Vuelta a España."

De la Cruz came home in a trio with Igor Anton and Merhawi Kudus (Dimension Data) at 32 seconds, while Tao Geoghegan Hart, who’d done much of the work marshalling attacks for his Sky teammate De la Cruz, was sixth at 52 seconds.

López’s Astana teammate Pello Bilbao finished at 57 seconds and Rein Taaramae (Direct Energie), who was an attacking force further down the mountain, at 1:04, and Sergio Pardilla (Caja Rural) at 1:06.

The victory sees Lopez take the leader’s jersey, with Sosa second at two seconds. There’s a more considerable gap to Kudus in third overall, at 27 seconds, while De la Cruz and Anton round out the top five, both at 34 seconds. Geoghegan Hart and Bilbao are the only others within a minute of López.

After a likely sprint on Friday, the general classification battle will be resumed, and definitively decided, on Saturday, with a similarly gruelling hors-cateogrie summit finish at Lagunas de Neila.

How it unfolded

Stage 3, running 149km from Sedano to the top of Picón Blanco, was the first real general classification showdown of the five-stage race, after the short uphill finish on the opening day and the more traditional sprint on Wednesday.

There were four category-3 climbs on the menu, but they’d all pale into insignificance in the shadow of Picón Blanco, an 8.5km ascent at an average of 9.1 per cent, but with irregular gradients and several sections in the double digits.

Luis Mas (Caja Rural) went solo after the early intermediate sprint and the break duly formed on the first of the climbs, the Alto de la Mota. Mas was joined by Pablo Torres (Burgos-BH), Delio Fernández (Delko Marseille Provence KTM), Txomin Juaristi (Fundación Euskadi), and Sinde Skjostad Lunke (Fortuneo-Samsic).

Torres helped himself to the points at the next two climbs and the intermediate sprint as the quintet established a lead of around three minutes.

The endgame began on the Alto Retuerta with 30km to go. The escapees had a lead of 1:30, and just shy of the summit Mas jumped clear and led onto the descent. He was soon joined by Torres but the other three fell away and were soon back in the peloton.

Mas and Torres hit the final climb with a lead of 55 seconds. Torres was quickly dropped, while Mas clung on for a couple of kilometres but was powerless against the advancing peloton, led by López’s Astana teammate Dario Cataldo.

The Italian led for most of the first half of the climb and thinned out the bunch, though it would explode when Movistar’s Ruben Fernández accelerated with 4.3km to go. Antón and Taaramae tracked it but soon López would launch his first attack. Antón and Taaramae made subsequent attacks of their own, with Sosa and López responding to form a lead group of four. That swelled to eight as Geoghegan Hart dragged De la Cruz back, with Kudus and Pardilla in attendance.

With just over three kilometres remaining, López made his big attack and this time he was away. His gap was never huge as Geoghegan Hart set tempo behind, but he took advantage of a big lull in the wake of an Antón attack to take a healthy lead into the final kilometre.

The stage looked his to lose, but Sosa ripped across in the final kilometre. Such was the ferocity of the attack, it looked like he would move straight past López, or at least pick him off in the sprint, but the elder Colombian found another gear and a better line to take the victory and take the lead, with all to play for on the similarly gruelling summit finish on the final stage on Saturday.

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