Vuelta a Espana: Schleck wins on Ermita de Alba

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Fränk Schleck (Trek Factory Racing) emerged from the wilderness to claim his first victory in over four years on stage 16 of the Vuelta a España, but his achievement will inevitably be overshadowed by the battle that took place ten minutes behind him on the road. On the viciously steep slopes of the Alto Ermita de Alba, Joaquim Rodriguez (Katusha) did just enough to divest Fabio Aru (Astana) of the red jersey by a solitary second, but both men will be concerned by how Tom Dumoulin (Giant-Alpecin) managed to keep his hopes of final overall victory alive.

The final three kilometres of the last of the day’s seven categorised climbs featured slopes that touched 30%, and the overall contenders seemed to spend much of the afternoon with those gradients foremost in their thoughts, allowing Schleck and the early escapees to build up a maximum advantage of 21 minutes.

Schleck and his fellow survivor Rodolfo Torres (Colombia) still had ten minutes in hand by the time they reached the base of the final climb, where the Luxembourger would eventually inch clear 1,500 metres from the summit, though by that point, the forcing of the Astana and Tinkoff-Saxo squads had reduced the red jersey group to just 15 or so riders.

After Pawel Poljanski’s impressive cameo at the bottom in the service of Rafal Majka (Tinkoff-Saxo), Mikel Landa (Astana) took over as the gradient stiffened. Ostensibly, the Basque’s goal was to shake Dumoulin loose, but for long stretches, his leader Aru seemed to be in just as much difficulty, though his pace did at least prevent Rodriguez from unsheathing his sword before the stinging final kilometres.

Alejandro Valverde (Movistar) and Esteban Chaves (Orica-GreenEdge) were distanced as the gradient bit in earnest with two kilometres to go, but while Dumoulin finally betrayed signs of suffering within sight of the flamme rouge, he remained in touch until the final 800 metres.

At that very moment, Rodriguez sensed his opportunity, bounding clear of the red jersey group, but as the pace dropped almost to slow motion, Aru managed to battle gamely and limit his losses. He was almost within clutching distance of Rodriguez’s coattails by the summit, but eventually came home two seconds behind the Catalan, and lost his red jersey by a scant second.

“To be honest, I was just following Purito in the last kilometres,” Aru said, deftly side-stepping a query on Landa’s fealty. “He was going very well. We tried to control him with my teammates but we couldn’t follow him all the way. There’s an important time trial to come and one second won’t count for much.”

Dumoulin, meanwhile, was out of sight but by no means out of the general classification picture. He came home in 16th place on the stage – some 9:18 down on Schleck but less than half a minute behind Rodriguez and Aru. With Wednesday’s 38.7km time trial in Burgos still to come, Dumoulin lies in fourth overall, just 1:51 down on Rodriguez and he had ample reason to smile as he recovered at the summit.

“I saved the day,” Dumoulin admitted. “I was much better than expected. It was very fast but I was never really in trouble.”

There was an air of disappointment, by contrast, about Majka, who came home with Nairo Quintana (Movistar), 12 seconds down on Rodriguez, and who now lies third overall, 1:35 down. “I’m a little bit surprised with the last kilometre,” he said. “I tried to follow Rodriguez, but he is a specialist for the steep part and it’s difficult to stay behind him.”

For Schleck, meanwhile, the victory was his first since he served a one-year ban for a positive test for Xipamide at the 2012 Tour de France. His last win of any description came at the 2011 Criterium International, while Luxembourg’s last Vuelta stage winner was his father Johny, in 1970.

“I came here with intentions of a nice classification but I was involved in a couple of crashes so I had to change tactics,” Schleck said. “The team and I talked about this stage, I knew it was good for me.”

How it unfolded

As the Vuelta peloton faced into its ninth summit finish of the race, its third in as many days, and with some seven categorised climbs on the agenda, there was a truce of sorts called in the red jersey group for the opening half of Monday’s stage.

The early break featuring Schleck, Torres, Moreno Moser (Cannondale-Garmin), Cyril Lemoine (Cofidis), Larry Warbasse (IAM Cycling), George Bennett (LottoNL-Jumbo), Omar Fraile (Caja Rural-Seguros RGA), Carlos Verona (Etixx-Quick Step), Pierre Rolland (Europcar) and Tsgabu Grmay (Lampre-Merida) sallied clear ahead of the Alto de Aristebano and the peloton gladly left them to it.

While Fraile gleefully mopped up the mountains points, the ten escapees – none of them a threat on general classification – built up a maximum advantage of some 21 minutes with 120 kilometres remaining before Katusha – after a stand-off with Astana over who ought to chase – finally set about pegging the gap back.

The hostilities only truly began in the main peloton on the day’s third last climb, the Alto del Cordal, where Tinkoff-Saxo set a fierce pace in support of Majka, and that kind of effort was replicated by Astana on the next ascent, the Alto de la Cobertoria, where Diego Rosa was very prominent.

The aim, undoubtedly, was to discommode Dumoulin, but the Dutchman seemed unflustered throughout, suggesting afterwards that he would have been more troubled by repeated changes in pace rather than the brisk tempo imposed by Astana and Tinkoff-Saxo.

Their efforts did reduce the leading group just 15 riders by the final climb, but despite Landa’s forcing, Dumoulin held tough for longer than any of his rivals will have appreciated. Rodriguez, meanwhile, will begin the final push towards Madrid in the red jersey, and he will hope that the third time is a charm.

In 2012, he was caught out by Alberto Contador’s surprise attack on the road to Fuente De after the second rest day. In 2010, perhaps more pertinently and certainly more traumatically, his challenge collapsed with a calamitous showing in the Penafiel time trial.

“The goal is the podium and, why not, the victory. Let’s hope I can do a great time trial,” Rodriguez said. “In the end, winning the Vuelta is in my own hands.”

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