Vuelta a Espana: Dumoulin smashes Burgos time trial

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The remarkable story that is Tom Dumoulin’s Vuelta a España continued to write itself on Wednesday as the Dutchman moved into the race lead thanks to a crushing time trial performance on stage 17.

Dumoulin started the day fourth and 1:51 down on Joaquim Rodríguez’s race lead but set a time of 46:01 over the 38.7km course in Burgos to win the stage and overhaul the general classification favourites.

On the day he beat Maciej Bodnar (Tinkoff-Saxo) by 1:04 and Alejandro Valverde by 1:08 but the important measurement was the one between himself and Rodríguez (Katusha), Fabio Aru (Astana), and Rafal Majka (Tinkoff-Saxo).

In the end it was devastating, with Rodríguez finishing a sorry 3:06 down, while Majka saw his podium ambitions severely dented as he came home 2:38 back.

Aru, however, made sure the battle for the red jersey remains very much alive, if now a two-horse race, with a solid performance, particularly in the second half of the largely flat course. The Italian ceded 1:53 to Dumoulin, whom he now trails by just three seconds on GC, leaving things delicately poised for the three stages that precede the ceremonial finish in Madrid.

Rodríguez finds himself third on GC at 1:15 with Majka fourth at 2:22.

Nairo Quintana, who saw his Vuelta dreams go out of the window on last year’s individual time trial, moved up into the top five thanks to an impressive ride to sixth on the day. It was a good day for Movistar in general, with Valverde’s storming display seeing him jump from 10th to sixth.

Dumoulin’s time trialling capabilities are no secret, but he has surprised everyone with his presence at the sharp end of the overall at this juncture. Few would have envisaged him taking victory as the race rolled out of Puerto Banús two and a half weeks ago but he now has a real opportunity to do just that. The final stages hardly lend themselves to huge time gaps but such is the narrowness of Dumoulin’s margin over Aru, the Vuelta is set for an exciting and nail-biting conclusion.

The early pace-setters

Boy van Poppel (Trek Factory Racing) had the honour of being the first man off the start ramp at about 1.30pm Spanish time. For the first couple of hours the riders set off at one-minute intervals and Van Poppel was caught on the line by a rider who set off four minutes after him as Gediminas Bagdonas (Ag2r-La Mondiale) laid down an early marker with a time of 49:22.

Bodnar then set a proper reference point, going through each of the intermediate checkpoints to beat Bagdonas by over two minutes and clock 47:05, which would earn him a three-hour spell in the hot seat.

Steve Cummings (MTN-Qhubeka) was quicker than the Pole at the first checkpoint, after 13.5km, but faded to finish 36 seconds back, with Vasil Kiryienka (Team Sky) coming through soon after to get nine seconds closer to Bodnar.

Geraint Thomas (48:29) and Niki Terpstra (48:44) set solid times to put themselves high up the leaderboard but then the faster times started to roll in as those nearer the top of the general classification hit the roads of Burgos.

No-one, though, seemed to be able to get close to Bodnar, with specialists like French national champion Jerome Coppel and multiple Portuguese time trial champion Nelson Oliveira riding well but still coming off half a minute down.

The GC battle

As attentions shifted to the GC battle, eyes turned skywards with grey clouds looming. Valverde, Louis Meintjes (MTN-Qhubeka), Nairo Quintana (Movistar) and Daniel Moreno (Katusha) got away before the first drizzle began to fall but in the end the weather gods had mercy and the rain didn’t become a factor.

Dumoulin, with the advantage of wearing his own skinsuit as opposed to the recently-made-up ones worn by Rodríguez and Aru as leaders of the general and points classifications respectively, got off to a flyer.

Rodríguez, hardly the strongest time triallist, looked uncomfortable and twitchy on the bike and at the first checkpoint he lost over a minute to Dumoulin, who was also putting chunks of time into Majka and Aru.

Dumoulin was fastest of the field through the second checkpoint at 27.5km and was only inflicting more damage on Rodríguez and Majka. Aru, however, was able to stem the tide somewhat, and rallied back to keep his hopes – and the race – alive. 

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