Vuelta a Espana: Rodriguez wins stage 15 in Jitu de Escarandi

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Joaquim Rodriguez (Katusha) moved to within a second of Fabio Aru’s (Astana) race lead with a captivating win on stage 15 of the Vuelta a Espana.

The Spaniard dropped his main GC rivals on the final climb and although Aru gave chase, along with Rafal Majka (Tinkoff-Saxo), he was unable to close the gap with Rodriguez picking up a precious 10-second time bonus courtesy of his win. Majka crossed the line in second, with Aru fading at the line.

Rodriguez finished the stage 12 seconds clear of Majka, with Daniel Moreno taking third ahead of Nairo Quintana (Movistar). The Colombian climber had put his team to work for most of the stage after he was able to claw back a handful of seconds on Aru during stage 14. Quintana even managed a stinging attack with 10km to go, but Astana were quick to spot the danger, reeling in the Tour runner-up.

Astana then assumed control and bridged over the remnants of the day’s early break, but despite the pace setting from Aru’s men and then from Movistar’s Giovanni Visconti, the main GC favourites remained grouped together.

Tom Dumoulin’s position looked precarious, however, with the Giant-Alpecin rider hanging onto the leaders as they went through the 7km to go banner. When the inevitable came he set about limiting his loses. At first he held the Aru group at a manageable 20 seconds, but when Astana lifted the pace he was unable to respond and the gap quickly opened out to over a minute.

Quintana’s second attack, however, failed to materialise and it was Rodriguez who assumed control as the gradient kicked up inside the final 2km. There wasn’t a sudden acceleration – the terrain wouldn’t allow for that – just a move to the front and push on the pedals that had his rivals on the back foot. Quintana cracked immediately, with only Aru and Majka able to give chase.

Rodriguez had started the stage 26 seconds down on the Italian but despite Aru holding the gap at just a few seconds, Rodriguez’s power soon began to tell, and with Aru in trouble Majka kicked around him and moved into second place.

Quintana, Landa and the impressive Chaves found a second wind and joined Aru just before the line, with the Italian having just enough to hold onto the leader’s jersey by a single second.

It was Dumoulin who truly saved the day. Having been close to 1:20 down on his rivals, he clawed his way back to 50 seconds at the line. Although he dropped a place, with Majka moving up to third, the Dutchman is still on course for a podium place with the stage 17 time trial on the horizon.

How it unfolded

After yesterday’s exploits and a break successfully contesting the stage win for the second day in a row, expectations were high for today’s break.

However, even making the split must have felt like a victory in itself with almost 50km needed before a nine-man move of Blel Kadri (AG2R - La Mondiale), Ricardo Vilela (Caja Rural - Seguros RGA), Dominique Rollin (Cofidis), Brayan Ramirez (Colombia), Nikolas Maes (Etixx - Quick Step), Natnael Berhane (MTN - Qhubeka), Pierre Rolland (Europcar), Maarten Tjallingii (Lotto NL - Jumbo), and Haimar Zubeldia (Trek Factory) could officially call themselves the break of the day.

The terrain in the first few hours looked ideal for the them to push on and create a healthy advantage, but Movistar – buoyed by Quintana’s performance 24 hours earlier and well aware that time was against them in this race, set a brisk tempo behind.

It meant that the break struggled to establish a significant gap, and despite their best efforts they were never able to build on more than a five-minute lead.

In fact, those five minutes only came inside the final 60km with Rollin leading them over the first categorised climb of the day.

Once the group reached the foot of the final climb their advantage was just over two minutes with Movistar still on the front.

Only Zubeldia managed to put up any firm resistance, holding the chase at one minute while the rest of the break succumbed.

Movistar called a halt to their work with 10km remaining, and Quintana’s inevitable attack threatened to turn the race on its head, but Luis Leon Sanchez marked him and the rest of the Astana men dragged Aru back within the space of a few hundred meters. It would be the only time Quintana attacked.

Not that Movistar were done there. They issued Visconti with instructions to set an energetic tempo with 5km to go, and even though Dumoulin was dropped soon after and Aru appeared to be on briefly on the ropes, it was Rodriguez who almost ghosted clear the take the stage.

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