Stage 11 proved to be a tough day in the office for Orica-Scott as the Australian team’s leaders lost time despite an aggressive approach to today’s stage at La Vuelta.
Starting the day in second overall, Esteban Chaves has dropped to third after he lost almost two-minutes to the general classification favourites. The 27-year-old now sits two-minutes 33seconds behind leader Chris Froome (Team Sky), with Vincenzo Nibali (Bahrain Merida) moving into second place, one-minute 19seconds off the pace.
2016 Tour de France best young rider Adam Yates also lost time, finishing nine-minutes 13seconds down on winner Miguel Angel Lopez (Astana) to drop to 20th overall.
Chaves admitted that sometimes races don’t always go to plan.
“It was really cold for everybody but like always the team worked really well,” Chaves told media at the finish line. “Sometimes when you have one plan, in the final it’s good or it’s bad but the important thing is that we tried.”
“At the bottom of this last climb Bahrain attacked, Nibali attacked and (Alberto) Contador attacked and I lost the wheel. Jack (Haig) was with me and we tried to take one pace and minimise the time lost.”
“It was part of the plan (for Simon to attack),” Chaves explained. “But as I said, sometimes the plan works out well like last year’s 20th stage and sometimes it’s like today.”
“But we tried and we will continue to try.”
