After a long day in the break, Michael Schwarzmann was dropped only on the penultimate climb, being surprisingly at the head of the race for most of the second mountain stage of the Vuelta 2017. Also BORA – hansgrohe’s leader Rafal Majka felt better after suffering stomach problems for the last three days. Majka could follow the bunch until the final climb of the day and finished the stage without any problems in 97th place.
Another challenging day awaited the riders on today’s 5th stage of the La Vuelta. Non less than 5 categorized climbs, including a short but steep ascent to the finish, dotted the 175.7 kilometers between Benicàssim and Alcossebre. But the parcours was undulated the whole day, so there was no time at all for the peloton to take a deep breath.
For BORA – hansgrohe’s leader Rafal Majka today was all about surviving. After suffering from stomach problems the last three days, this challenging stage was a big obstacle for the Polish’s rider way to Madrid. Starting to feel a little better in the morning, for Majka it was key to force himself to get some fuel in during the stage. At the least the whole team was ready to sacrifice themselves for bringing home their leader safely.
Already before the first climb of the day, a group of 9 riders went away from the peloton, littler later joined by a counter attack including Michael Schwarzmann. For Rafal Majka an ideal situation, as Team Sky started to ride a steady pace in the bunch. While the 17-men breakaway group went together until the penultimate climb of the day, the peloton never allowed them to increase their lead to more than 4 Minutes. Then, on the Alto de la Serratella, the break split up and Michael Schwarzmann was dropped.
It was another painful day for BORA – hansgrohe’s leader Majka, suffering the whole day in the peloton, he still was able to follow the bunch until the final kilometers of the stage. With 30k to go the peloton decided to let the remaining breakaway riders go, the pace dropped and the gap increased to more than 7 minutes.
In the battle for the stage win, first some riders attacked in the last flatter part of the stage, and A. Lutsenko proved to be the strongest climber among them to take the win in Alcossebre. While in the peloton the GC contenders raced hard against each other to gain some seconds. At that point Rafal Majka was already dropped, but had no problems to finished the stage well protected from his team mates in 97th place.
“Today was already better. Still I miss a lot of energy, but I was able to eat in the morning and also during the stage. So now it’s all about saving energy and recovery during the next days. Then we will see what possibilities the Vuelta will offer us in the second and third week.” – Rafal Majka
“Well, our plan was that I support Patrick in the first flat part to help him jump in the group, but then all of a sudden I was in up there. Of course, I tried to hang on there then. It was nice to present the BORA – hansgrohe colors at the front of the race, but when the climbers started to go hard, I had no chance to follow them anymore.” – Michael Schwarzmann
“The most important thing is that Rafal feels better. Also Pawel looks OK again, but now Emanuel starts to have some problems, but he is not that bad as Rafal was, so we hope he also will recover soon. It was a strong ride from Michael to be up there in this group of strong climbers. He did his best, but we knew his possibilities will be limited. I am sure that now we did come through a very bad period for us, things will change the next days.” – Steffen Radochla, Sports Director
