The Tinkoff leader, Alberto Contador, today showed the fighting spirit that has made him one of the most successful riders in the professional peloton. With the race’s first top category climb coming the day before the race’s first rest day, the Spanish rider surged forward in the final 10km of the stage to finish a strong 8thposition that saw him jump to a top five position in the GC.
The Especial Meta. Lagos de Covadonga loomed over stage 10’s profile today, the race’s first top category climb coming at the day’s finish. Before this, the first category Alto del Mirador del Fito, cresting 148km into the 188.7km parcours, would make a perfect springboard for any riders with their eyes on the stage win, a climb up the GC – or both.
On what could be a pivotal stage, the peloton kept a close eye on the breakaways to ensure no-one escaped up the road who could threaten the GC standings, but with a lot of the day to come and the final fireworks likely to take place on the last climb, a group of five was allowed up the road. As the day went on, attacks and counter attacks came and went, and the lead group grew in number, with the advantage on the peloton growing with it. Extending their lead to around five minutes, this was as much as the peloton was going to allow.
With his wounds sustained on stage 7 still bandaged up, the Tinkoff leader, Alberto Contador was biding his time in the bunch, supported well by his teammates as the halfway point came and went. The final two climbs of the day were where the action was going to take place, and so the Spanish rider saved his energy – the peloton pushing on hard to make the catch.
Having started the day 7th in the GC, Alberto saw an opportunity to take some time as the race entered its final 10km and the pace rose substantially. In spite of his injuries, he took up the chase for the line with two of his GC rivals to reel in the last members of the break. The drizzle in the air didn’t dampen his spirits as he crossed the line in 8th position – his strong placing pushing him up to 5th overall after excelling on the hardest day of the race so far.
The Spanish rider gave some insight into how the ascent of the Meta. Lagos de Covadonga unfolded. “Following Nairo in the final climb took its toll because he kept changing the rhythm. I had two options on how to do the race. The first one was to try to go with Nairo and the second one to follow Froome because I thought I had Froome in 2012 and 2014, who had problems at the finish. I played the Nairo card and I made an error. He was very strong, he changed the rhythm and that made me blow up. Afterwards, I had trouble getting back my pace. We know how Froome rides on the climbs, he focuses on his watts and sticks to that and everybody now knows his tactics but it worked brilliantly for him.”
From the finish, Sport Director, Steven De Jongh, saw that his crash had slowed him down, but his rise up the GC showed promise for the race to come. “Today we saw the crash cost Alberto, but he fought hard. When Quintana attacked, he couldn’t follow and he set his own pace. We have to look ahead – he’s 5th on the GC now and I’m sure we can move up in the stages to come.”
Going into the first rest day in Oviedo, Alberto will be concentrating on recovering after ten hard days in Spain, as well as to allow his injuries to continue healing. With a long way to go until the finish in Madrid, this Vuelta is far from over, and tomorrow the whole team would be taking a well-deserved opportunity to rest, explained De Jongh. “We have to see now day by day – luckily tomorrow is a rest day so can recover. The other guys made it through today – Jesús had a fall early and had a few cuts but he should be fine.”
Alberto echoed his Sport Director’s comments, and was concentrating on recovering before tackling the remainder of the race day by day. Tomorrow we have a rest day and on Wednesday we resume the battle, hoping it gets better for us. The differences, for various reasons, are enormous and this makes the rest of the Vuelta an uphill struggle. However, we’ll keep on, taking it day-by-day in order to see what we can do.”
When the race returns on Wednesday, the flatter start to stage 11 will gently ease riders back into the race after their rest day. The 168.6km stage sees the race tackle a fairly flat parcours until the last 10km of the stage, where the day will end on the first category Peña Cabarga – a 9.8%, 5.6km final push that the GC riders will doubtless be saving themselves for.
There were some hard days ahead, but the Tinkoff leader was committed to the fight. “I still think it’s too early to make a judgment on the Vuelta. I think we need to be calmer in order to take a decision. We have to assess the pros and cons, the circumstances and based on that decide what the best strategy will be. Obviously, my goal isn’t just to ride a good race, my goal is to fight for the overall win. It’s true though that right now this is quite difficult, I don’t want to use the word impossible because I don’t like it. We are still halfway through the Vuelta and on a day you have a crisis you can lose quite some time but we’ll keep on fighting.”
Stage Result
1. Nairo Quintana (COL) Movistar Team 04:50:31
2. Robert Gesink (NED) Team LottoNL-Jumbo +00:00:24
3. Chris Froome (GBR) Team Sky +00:00:25
4. Omar Fraile (SPA) Dimension Data +00:00:28
5. Alejandro Valverde (SPA) Movistar Team +00:00:28
8. Alberto Contador (SPA) Tinkoff +00:01:05
43. Jesús Hernández (SPA) Tinkoff +00:05:21
58. Yuri Trofimov (RUS) Tinkoff +00:10:01
112. Ivan Rovny (RUS) Tinkoff +00:18:06
133. Michael Gogl (AUT) Tinkoff +00:21:43
135. Manuele Boaro (ITA) Tinkoff +00:21:43
140. Daniele Bennati (ITA) Tinkoff +00:21:43
141. Sergio Paulinho (POR) Tinkoff +00:21:43
GC After Stage 10
1. Nairo Quintana (COL) Movistar Team 38:37:07
2. Alejandro Valverde (SPA) Movistar Team +00:00:57
3. Chris Froome (GBR) Team Sky +00:00:58
4. Esteban Chaves (COL) Orica-BikeExchange +00:02:09
5. Alberto Contador (SPA) Tinkoff Team +00:02:54
40. Jesús Hernández (SPA) Tinkoff +00:21:33
46. Yuri Trofimov (RUS) Tinkoff +00:29:55
110. Daniele Bennati (ITA) Tinkoff +01:22:56
122. Michael Gogl (AUT) Tinkoff +01:29:17
124. Ivan Rovny (RUS) Tinkoff +01:30:53
140. Sergio Paulinho (POR) Tinkoff +01:40:18
153. Manuele Boaro (ITA) Tinkoff +01:50:36
