Fraile takes out intense País Vasco stage to Eibar

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Primoz Roglic (LottoNL-Jumbo) tightened his grip on the overall race lead at the Vuelta al Pais Vasco, finishing second on the hilly stage to Eibar. His closest rival Julian Alaphilippe (Quick-Step Floors) cracked on the final climb of the day as Movistar blew the race apart and faded from the podium positions.

Omar Fraile (Astana) won the stage, dominating the sprint after the strongest of the overall contenders and a small group of quality riders from the breakaway came together on the category 1 Azurki Gaina climb and descent inside 20km to go.

Fraile made sure to position himself at the back of the rotation as Roglic, Mikel Landa and Ion Izagirre's Bahrain-Merida teammate Mark Padun worked to improve their respective overall positions.

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Izagirre received a nice lead-out from his Ukranian teammate, but timed it wrong, giving Fraile the jump on the finishing stretch. Roglic smartly took the bonus seconds for second, padding his lead as his biggest rivals were also distanced.

Bauke Mollema (Trek-Segafredo), third before the stage, finished in the first chase group timed at 1:27 and dropped down to fifth. Alaphilippe finishing a disappointed 2:14 behind, dropping from second to fourth overall, now 2:55 down on Roglic.

Izagirre and Landa's efforts moved them up to second and third overall, respectively, after finishing in the same time Roglic. Izagirre is at 2:13 with Landa at 2:17.

They will now try to take on Roglic on Saturday's final mountain stage with the steep uphill finish to Arrate set to decide the final overall winner.

How it happened

The 163km stage was anticipated to be a warm-up for Saturday's final showdown, with LottoNL-Jumbo expected to let a break steal the glory of the day. How wrong we were.

The only riders absent after the time trial were Michael Storer (Sunweb) and Vincenzo Nibali (Bahrain-Merida), who headed home to treat a nasty saddle sore. Everyone else enjoyed another aggressive day of racing in the Basque sunshine.

A headwind on the high plateau made it difficult for attacks to get away but a 13-rider move was given its freedom after 35km. They quickly opened a 5:00 gap with little sign of nervousness in the peloton behind.

José Rojas (Movistar), Pierre Latour (AG2R La Mondiale), Omar Fraile (Astana), José Herrada, Daniel Teklehaimanot (Cofidis,) Mark Padun (Bahrain-Merida), Jay McCarthy (Bora-hansgrohe), Tosh Van der Sande (Lotto Soudal), Michael Albasini, Carlos Verona (Mitchelton-Scott), Alex Howes (EF-Drapac), Jonathan Castroviejo (Sky), Jai Hindley (Sunweb) and Matteo Bono (UAE-Emirates) were the adventurers of the day.

Teklehaimanot was the first to be dropped as Movistar set the tempo behind, clearly with a plan of action for later.

The second half of the stage included three steep climbs and was ideal terrain for attacks. The first, the Elosua Giana, was 8.1km in length and saw Movistar turn up the pace, especially near the summit and over the top. The pace was also high in the breakaway with Rojas, Fraile, Latour, Padun, Verona and Castroviejo going clear. The leaders came back together on the descent and so did the peloton, with Roglic happy to see two LottoNL-Jumbo teammates get back on after momentarily being isolated.

There was a pause in the racing on the valley road but the Endoia Gaina - Azurki Gaina climbs came in the final 35km of racing, a tough double whammy, with a total of 12.5km of ascending.

Early on slopes of the Endoia Gaina climb, the Movistar team put its card on the table with Landa going on the attack. He was on a mission and after several accelerations, Julian Alaphilippe was dropped. Roglic, Ion Izagirre (Bahrain-Merida), Rigoberto Uran (EF Education First-Drapac) and David De la Cruz (Team Sky) joined him and they pushed clear. Alaphilippe was suffering and deep in the red, with only Enric Mas to help him.

Uran and De la Cruz cracked, slipping back to the chasers and Quintana was not there but Landa pushed on, keen to earn as much time as possible and perhaps crack Roglic.

Verona – who earlier had exchanged heated words with Fraile - attacked on the Azurki Gaina. He got a gap but was soon caught as the attackers and the remains of the breakaway formed for the descent. The gap to the chasers was close to a minute, with Alaphilippe even further back.

Up front were Carlos Verona (Mitchelton-Scott), Primoz Roglic (LottoNL-Jumbo), Mikel Landa (Movistar), Jon Izagirre (Bahrain-Merida), Omar Fraile (Astana), Jesus Herrada (Cofidis) and Mark Padun (Bahrain-Merida).

Despite some attacks they stayed together with Fraile strongest and leading out the sprint to win by a couple of bike lengths. He was the winner of the day but Roglic now seems in total charge, with only Saturday's 122km stage and its eight nasty climbs standing between him and overall victory.

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