Vuelta a Espana: Armee wins stage 18

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The momentum is once again with Chris Froome (Team Sky) at the Vuelta a España after he distanced Vincenzo Nibali (Bahrain-Merida) on the short final climb to Alto de Santo Toribio de Liébana on stage 18 to extend his lead atop the overall standings to 1:37.

Froome and Nibali were part of the red jersey group that reached the finale more than ten minutes down on stage winner Sander Armee (Lotto Soudal), who had proved the strongest of the day's early break.

After a volley of attacks from Alberto Contador (Trek-Segafredo) on the penultimate ascent of Collada de la Hoz had sown plenty of tension but failed to separate the podium contenders, few anticipated any major differences to be made on the final category 2 kick to the line.

Not for the first time on this Vuelta, however, Froome's Sky guard laid down an imposing rhythm on the final climb, with Gianni Moscon once again delivering a show of strength that was all the more startling considering he is a 23-year-old Classics specialist in the third week of his debut Grand Tour.

Esteban Chaves (Orica-Scott) and Miguel Angel Lopez (Astana) were among the riders distanced approaching the flamme rouge as the pace began to bite, and Froome proceeded to deliver a rasping acceleration of his own once teammate Wout Poels swung over inside the final kilometre.

Only Contador and Michael Woods (Cannondale-Drapac) could match Froome's surge as the group of podium contenders splintered behind him, and while Wilco Kelderman (Sunweb) and Ilnur Zakarin (Katusha-Alpecin) responded well to limit their losses to just four seconds at the finish, Nibali was in obvious difficulty and pedalling with leaden strokes.

Nibali, so impressive in distancing Froome on the vertiginous slopes of Los Machucos on Wednesday, handed back precisely half of those gains on the rather gentler ascent of Santo Toribio de Liébana, and has left himself with a considerably more arduous path to final overall victory in Madrid on Sunday. The Italian must drop Froome decisively on the Angliru on Saturday, an ascent where the severity of the gradient paradoxically can make it more difficult to eke out sizeable gains.

"Today worked out perfectly in my favour. It was a really tough stage. A lot of GC guys tried to attack on the penultimate climb, so once we got onto that final climb the team did a really strong pace at the bottom, and I think certainly some guys paid for their efforts yesterday and also paid for their attacks earlier on today," said Froome.

Armee's solo triumph

As is so often the case in the third week of a Grand Tour, there were two races for the price of one on stage 18 of the Vuelta, as a 20-man break forged clear after a little over an hour of racing and fought it out for stage victory, while Froome, Nibali et al traded blows in the battle for GC honours further down the road.

The stage winner Sander Armee was part of the high-quality move that established itself after 60 kilometres, and he was joined in that endeavour by Julian Alaphilippe and Matteo Trentin (Quick-Step Floors), Alessandro De Marchi (BMC), Magnus Cort Nielsen (Orica-Scott), Nelson Oliveira and Marc Soler (Movistar), Patrick Konrad (Bora-Hansgrohe), Clément Chevrier and Alexis Gougeard (AG2R La Mondiale), Toms Skujins (Cannondale-Drapac), Antwan Tolhoek (LottoNL-Jumbo), Matej Mohoric (UAE Team Emirates), Alexey Lutsenko (Astana), Giovanni Visconti (Bahrain-Merida), Jérémy Maison and Anthony Roux (FDJ), Stéphane Rossetto (Cofidis), Sergio Pardilla (Caja Rural-Seguros RGA), and Aldemar Reyes (Manzana-Postobón).

They were granted a long leash by Team Sky, and had built up a lead in excess of 13 minutes by the time they hit the day's first classified climb, the category 3 Collada de Carmona after 109 kilometres. In a foretaste of what was to come, Alaphilippe inexplicably lost contact on the descent that followed, but was safely back aboard come the second ascent of the Collada de Ozalba, where the leading group remained intact.

Their unity eventually fragmented on the category 2 Collada de la Hoz, Gougeard and Sander Armee forced the pace, and they were joined by Alaphilippe, Soler, and Lutsenko closer to the summit. This quintet battled to maintain a small advantage over their erstwhile companions as they hurtled down the descent with 30 kilometres remaining, and was reduced to a leading trio by the time they reached the bottom, with only Armee, Lutsenko and Alaphilippe remaining in front.

Lutsenko and Alaphilippe, already stage winners at this Vuelta, would have been more highly fancied than Armee on a finish of this kind, but the Belgian cannily rid of himself of his companions in two installments in the finale. Sensing Alaphilippe's fatigue, Armee accelerated on the approach to the final, 3-kilometre climb to the line and found an ally of circumstance in Lutsenko, who put in a long turn of his own to ensure the Frenchman would not latch back on.

The seated Lutsenko seemed rather more fluid of pedal stroke once the climb to the line began, but appearances proved deceptive. Armee spent most of the climb out of the saddle, and he succeeded in shaking off Lutsenko with a shade over 600 metres remaining to claim the first victory of his professional career, 31 seconds clear of the Kazakhstani, while Visconti took third at 46 seconds.

"This is already my eighth year as a pro rider, so I had to wait quite a long time to win a race. I was a couple of times close, and I did my work for the team, but in this Vuelta, I got a chance to put myself in a free role and do my own race," Armee said. "This was the third time I am in a breakaway, and I felt really good. I felt better and better during the stage, and then in the end I knew I would be close and I went full gas to the finish line. I tried to just do my own pace the last few minutes, and I never came off the big chainring, so I knew if I could do that I could win the race."

Aru's lone raid

While Armee, Lutsenko et al were attempting to out-maneuver one another for the stage victory, the teams of the podium contenders were looking to place their men in position ahead of the day's denouement. Katusha-Alpecin's forcing on Collada de Ozalba was such that at one point, five of their riders, including Zakarin, opened a gap over the peloton, but by the top of the climb, it was Fabio Aru (Astana) who was on the offensive.

The Italian champion has endured a difficult Vuelta, and it was reported in La Gazzetta dello Sport on Thursday that his Astana team had even neglected to fit his bike with the 36-tooth chainring he had requested for the climb to Los Machucos on stage 17. Aru, seemingly destined to leave the team at season's end, looked to put a different slant on his Vuelta with a lone attack from distance, and at one point he looked set to move from 9th to 6th overall – or better – when he built up a lead of more than a minute and a half on the red jersey group.

Aru's advantage was pared back only on the final run-in to the finish line as Team Sky wound up the pace, and his gains were limited by day's end, as he finished just 14 seconds clear of Froome, Contador and Woods.

If Froome had shown little concern about Aru's solo effort, he was considerably more active in following Contador's brace of attacks on the category 2 Collada de la Hoz. The second of Contador's stinging attacks near the summit briefly reduced the red jersey group to just 10 riders, but Froome was among the first to respond, with Nibali, Kelderman, and Zakarin following in his wake.

They were unable to follow, however, in the final 800 metres, and Froome could scarcely hide his satisfaction at putting so much time into Nibali. "Yeah, I mean that feels great. That feels great especially after a difficult day yesterday," he said. "It's good to bounce back again, and as I said yesterday, the morale is still good and the team is still strong. We're just looking forward to getting through these next couple of days now."

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