The first queen stage in this year’s Vuelta turned out to be the expected leg breaker. While A. Lopez took an impressive stage win, Rafal Majka tried again to set his mark, but finally had to pay for the hard efforts done yesterday. All BORA – hansgrohe riders finished the stage safely inside the time limit.
After a hard mountain stage finishing in the Siera de la Pandera yesterday, today the Sierra Nevada awaited Rafal Majka and his BORA – hansgrohe team mates. A short, but brutal stage 15, covering just 129.4 kilometers from the start in Alcalá la Real to the Sierra. Two first category climbs and a fearsome final ascent, special category, almost 20k long and finishing at 2510 m above sea level – the first queen stage in this year’s La Vuelta.
Yesterday the day went almost perfectly for BORA – hansgrohe, with two riders in the break and a superior Rafal Majka finishing off a strong team work. But these efforts also did cost a lot of energy, and therefore today the team had to see how the riders have recovered overnight. Again, Rafal Majka was in theory the card to play, on a climb very well known as the team does plenty of altitude training camps in the area. But with a short stage, easier to control, also the GC riders were expected to set their mark.
Right from the start, attacks were flying again and after 30k of racing a group of 8 riders went away from the bunch. With no real climber up front, still the peloton held them on a short leash before the start of the first KOM of the day. As this group given limited chances for success, BORA – hansgrohe decided to stay with the group of favorites for the moment, after being active again on the beginning of the stage.
Already on the first KOM of the day a hard fight started as A. Yates, R. Bardet and S. Kruijswijk attacked from the bunch. Also Rafal Majka tried to follow this move, but had to accept, that now he had to pay for yesterday’s efforts, falling back to the main bunch. On the foot of the second climb of the day, Bardet, Yates, Kruijswijk and Armée were the new head of the race, about 1:30 ahead of the main bunch. There, A. Contador and A. Lopez decided to give it a go, while Rafal Majka was also dropped from this group and rode home his own rhythm.
In the end, Lopez did catch and drop everybody to take an impressive second stage win, while C. Froome remained his overall lead. All BORA – hansgrohe finished the stage within the time limit. So, now it is time for the second well deserved rest day, as the peloton heads to the north of Spain again.
“Today I was really empty. The win yesterday did cost a lot of energy, and I had to pay for that today. When Yates attacked, I was a little back in the bunch, so I went later and tried to catch them. But I felt straight away that this will not be my day. When you see how the stage played out in the end, we did everything right to give it a go yesterday. Now I have two rest days ahead of me, because also in the time trail on Tuesday I will take it easy. Then I will be ready for the last week.” – Rafal Majka
