Vuelta a Espana: De Marchi wins stage 11

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Alessandro De Marchi (BMC Racing) won the longest stage of this year’s Vuelta a Espana as the rolling Galicia hills sparked a hard day of racing and saw Thibaut Pinot (Groupama-FDJ) go close to taking the race lead from Simon Yates (Mitchelton-Scott) only to race far too generously and miss out even on a stage victory.

De Marchi and Pinot were part of a 19-rider break that formed after more than 100km of attacks and counter attacks. Pinot wasted energy with a series of attacks before BMC Racing took control at the head of the race and De Marchi powered away with Jhonatan Restrepo (Katusha-Alpecin) on the final climb.

The Italian then dropped his rival in the final kilometres and pouring rain to win alone. Restrepo finished 28 seconds behind De Marchi, with the remains of the break spread across two minutes and Pinot at 1:50.

The overall contenders finished only 2:02 behind after a late acceleration, and so Simon Yates kept the red leader’s jersey, one second ahead of Alejandro Valverde (Movistar). Valverde's teammate Nairo Quintana was aggressive in the final kilometre and remains third overall at 14 seconds.

De Marchi has won just four races in his nine-year career but three have come at the Vuelta a Espana, where he often gets the freedom to use his strength as a domestique to hunt for personal success.

He knew he had to attack alone this time if he wanted to win.

“If I waited for the sprint, for sure I’d have finished second. The only option I had was to try everything on the last climb. Honestly, I didn’t have my best legs, but it was just in the head,” he said after his victory, fatigued but happy.

“At one moment today I just said that I just had to keep trying because it was a real battle. Every move was looking like the good one and then it would come back. I just said: ‘OK, I just do the maximum I can’.”

How it unfolded

The longest stage of this year’s Vuelta a Espana seemed perfect for a breakaway and a quiet day in the peloton for the overall contenders. However, this is Spain and the Vuelta, not France and the Tour, and the roller coaster terrain proved to be a launch pad for another day off aggressive racing.

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