Vuelta a España: Anacona wins stage 9 on climb to Valdelinares

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After their riders took first and second place at the Giro, Colombia now looks set for another impressive return at the Vuelta following the summit finish at Valdelinares. Lampre-Merida’s Winner Anacona rode himself into GC contention as he won the ninth stage to the top of the first-category climb, where his fellow Colombian Nairo Quintana took the leader’s red jersey from his Movistar teammate Alejandro Valverde.

At 2-50 down on Valverde going into the stage, Anacona was the best placed of 31 riders who went clear after 25km of racing. The group’s lead maxed at eight-and-a-half minutes, and going onto the final climb Anacona still had a good chance of taking the red jersey for himself.

By now clear with just Trek’s Bob Jungels and Movistar’s Javi Moreno, Anacona and his two companions were more than four minutes clear of the peloton on the early ramps up to Valdelinares. But as this gap started to fall, Anacona decided to pressed on alone with 6km remaining.

Anacona’s hopes of a double coup rested on the contest between the GC favourites. The longer they held off from attacking each other, the better his chances of taking the red jersey became. It was only when Alberto Contador (Tinkoff-Saxo) attacked two kilometres from the line that the Lampre climber’s hopes of leading the race disappeared. As Anacona was celebrating his victory at the rain-soaked summit, his advantage was being whittled away.

When Contador opened up a lead of 10 seconds on his rivals, it seemed that he might end the day in red. But his advantage evaporated when Katusha’s Joaquim Rodríguez, aided by teammates Eduard Vorganov and Dani Moreno, began to chase him down, with Quintana following in their tracks.

Just as Contador was crossing the line 2-15 after Anacona, Rodríguez and Quintana were latching on to his rear wheel. That left four riders separated by just nine seconds at the top of the overall classification, with Quintana three seconds ahead of Contador, eight ahead of Valverde and nine ahead of Anacona.

Sky’s Chris Froome, who was unable to follow Contador, Rodríguez and Quintana, dropped back to fifth place, but is only 28 seconds off the lead, with Rodríguez another two in arrears going into Monday’s rest day.

“It was a great victory for me. I had tears in my eyes when I crossed the line,” admitted Anacona. “It’s a great day for me, for my team and for my country.”

“It’s the most important moment of my career,” he added. “This is my third season and I haven’t managed to win up to now. The red jersey would have been nice, but a victory is a victory. If I had had to choose between the stage win and the race lead, then I would have preferred the stage, which is how things turned out.”

Anacona said he was pleased to be back in the GC battle after losing time in the echelons on yesterday’s stage into Albacete. “Perhaps I will pay for this effort but for the moment I want to savour this victory and the knowledge that I am right in the GC battle gives me motivation to keep fighting and finish in the top 10 in this Vuelta,” he said.

How it unfolded

It appeared that most of the riders not in contention for GC wanted to get into the day’s break, no doubt figuring that there was a good chance it could survive to the finish at the Valdelinares ski station. Consequently, several big escape groups formed in the early kilometres, only to be reeled in by the peloton.

With 25 frantic kilometres covered, the peloton split into three groups. There were 27 up front, with another 16 in between them and the peloton. Just before the peloton got back on terms with the second group, four riders managed to bridge up to the front, which was now 31-strong.

As the best placed of them, Anacona quickly became the race leader on the road. Movistar were content to let the break’s advantage stretch to 8-30 crossing the first climb, the third-category Puerto de Cabigordo. Europcar’s Jérôme Cousin was first over the climb, ahead of mountains leader Luis Mas Bonet (Caja Rural-Seguros RGA).

The break began to split on the climb of the second-category San Rafael pass. Paris-Roubaix winners Tom Boonen (Omega Pharma) and Johan Van Summeren (Garmin-Sharp) both added an injection of pace, but it was an attack by Orica-GreenEdge’s Sam Bewley that blew the front group apart.

A series of attacks and counters followed. The last of them put Anacona, Jungels and Moreno in the clear. Movistar’s Moreno was marking the move for his team leaders and refused to contribute to the pace-making until the trio were on the early slopes of the final climb, when it became clear one of them would almost certainly win the stage.

The peloton hurtled onto the final climb with Tony Martin in the vanguard, setting a ferocious pace for Omega Pharma leader Rigoberto Urán. Then, as the advantage held by the three-man break dropped towards four minutes, Sky took over on the front of the red jersey group.

Realising his chances of leading the race were dwindling as Sky continued to eat into the break’s lead, Anacona struck out on his own with 6km left. At that point, Sky’s presence on the front suggested Froome would be the rider most likely to react, but it was Garmin’s Dan Martin who went first from the red jersey group with 3km left.

The Irishman’s attack immediately stretched the line behind, where Froome was now towards the back. Sensing this, Contador put in a dig of his own, which left Froome and Valverde stranded. This pair should bounce back in Tuesday’s time trial, but it’s followed by a tough summit finish above Pamplona, where the pure climbers will be on their favourite terrain again.

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