Vuelta a Espana: Alaphilippe wins stage 8

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Julian Alaphilippe (Quick-Step Floors) survived from the break to beat companions Jan Polanc (UAE Team Emirates) and Rafal Majka (Bora-Hansgrohe) to win stage 8 of the Vuelta a España.

Alberto Contador (Trek-Segafredo) continued his comeback to finish just ahead of Chris Froome (Sky), who again built up his race lead. They crossed the finish line 1:27 behind the winner.

The closing climb lived up to its billing. The Alto Xorret de Cati featured gradients up to 18 per cent, and as expected, it ripped the race apart. Much of the peloton was already exhausted by the nearly 200 kilometers in blazing heat, and fell back to let the contenders take over. Froome and Contador showed no signs of weakness, taking matters into their own hands.

Esteban Chavez (Orica Scott) and Michael Woods (Cannondale-Drapac) were the last to try to follow, as Vincenzo Nibali suffered on the climb. Still, it was the Italian who led a small group over the finish line, 17 seconds after Froome and Contador. The last few kilometers turned into a battle between Alaphilippe, Majka, and Polanc. Alaphilippe found the energy to jump with two hundred meters to go and celebrated joyously as he crossed the line, two seconds ahead of the chasing duo.

"It's incredible. I didn't expect that I would win the stage today," Alaphilippe said after the stage. "For me, it was a little bit complicated, since two or three stages ago I felt not so good. But I think for everybody it's the same. We did a good start with the team, from the beginning of the race we were always in the front, and today, I was thinking maybe tomorrow was a good final for me, but today a big group took the lead after 40 kilometres. I decided with Matteo Trentin, he put me in the front."

How it unfolded

The day started with the surprise announcement that Team Sunweb had pulled climbing star Warren Barguil from the race for ignoring team orders and riding for himself. The day’s other DNS was Sven Erik Bystrom (Katusha-Alpecin), who left with a broken scapula after crashing on stage 7.

Most of the stage could be described as rolling, but like a scorpion, it had a major sting in the tail, the dreaded Alto Xorret de Cati. With that thought looming in the back of their heads, the peloton got off to a nervous start. A crash in the neutral zone was followed by one only 3 kilometres into the day. Multiple attempts were made to escape, but the high pace and jangled nerves brought everything back together.

A large group of 21 finally got away after 35 kilometres. Jesus Hernandez (Trek-Segafredo), Julian Alaphilippe (Quick Step), Loic Vliegen (BMC), Nelson Oliveira (Movistar), Rafal Majka, Emanuel Buchmann, Christoph Pfingsten (Bora-Hansgrohe), Clément Chevrier (AG2R-La Mondiale), Brendan Canty (Cannondale-Drapac), Alberto Losada (Katusha-Alpecin), Daan Olivier (LottoNL-Jumbo), Przemyslaw Niemiec, Jan Polanc (UAE Team Emirates), Sergei Chernetski, Laurens De Vreese (Astana), Bart De Clercq, Maxime Monfort (Lotto-Soudal), Domen Novak (Bahrain-Merida), Serge Pauwels (Dimension Data), Guillaume Bonnafond (Cofidis) and Michel Kreder (Aqua Blue Sport) were able to move out and quickly built up a lead.

With Oliveira only 3:02 down on race leader Chris Froome in the overall rankings, Team Sky wanted to keep the gap down, and at the halfway point of the stage, the gap was over five minutes as temperatures soared to 37° C.

The first climb of the day, the third category Puerto de Bair, saw the gap go down to 4:25.

The Puerto de Onil, also a third category climb, came shortly thereafter and saw Niemiec, Canty and De Vreese jump for the points, which they took in that order.

With 20km left and the final climb rapidly approaching, Sky once again turned the speed up a notch. The gap fell to nearly four minutes, while riders were dropping off the back of the peloton.

Up front, Buchmann and Pfingsten worked hard to set things up for Majka on the climb. With 11km to go De Vreese was the first to jump, followed by former German champion Buchmann. The gap was already down to 3.40. The duo were caught as the road started tilting upwards on the Alto Xorret de Cati.

Bora led the charge up, with Buchmann pulling for Majka as the group behind them splintered. Buchmann had to drop back and Alaphilippe moved up to Majka, as the peloton was less than three minutes back. Attacks also started from the peloton, as the two leaders made their way up the steepest portion.

Soon it was Alberto Contador who attacked. He struck out with a group that contained David De La Cruz, Simon Yates, and Michael Woods, as Team Sky gave chase. The Spaniard kicked again with Froome forced to chase.

Another burst of speed saw Froome drop Chaves and the rest of his rivals with only Contador able to match the race leader. Froome charged his way up, as Contador fought his way back and they took on the dangerous descent together.

With the finish line approaching, Polanc appeared out of nowhere and shot past the two leaders. Alaphilippe jumped with several hundred meters to go to take the clear win ahead of Polanc and Majka. Froome and Contador caught up with Hernandez near the finish, and he helped his captain Contador to cross the finish line ahead of Froome.

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