Valverde trims Yates’ lead as battle for Vuelta a Espana heats up

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Alejandro Valverde vuelta 2018

Simon Yates’ slender lead in the Vuelta a Espana was cut from 33 to 25 seconds after the Briton lost ground to Alejandro Valverde in Wednesday’s mountain stage, which was won by Michael Woods.

Woods snatched a first grand tour victory by edging ahead of Dylan Teuns in thick mist 400 metres from the summit finish of the Balcon de Bizkaia mountain at the end of the 157km stage from Getxo, outlasting a breakaway also containing David de la Cruz and Rafal Majka.

Teuns finished five seconds behind Woods while De La Cruz finished third, 10 back.

Yates, bidding to become the second consecutive Briton to win the Vuelta after Chris Froome’s victory last year, finished two minutes 48 seconds behind Woods in 17th place, third fastest of the general classification hopefuls, losing eight seconds to Spaniards Valverde and Enric Mas.

Nairo Quintana’s hopes of a repeat of his 2016 Vuelta victory faded further as the Colombian finished three minutes 44 seconds behind Woods, sliding down to sixth place overall, two minutes 11 seconds off Yates.

Steven Kruijswijk had climbed into third the day before following a successful time trial but he fell back to fifth place after a disappointing performance in the mountains, with Mas taking his spot in third, one minute 22 seconds behind Yates.

Thursday sees the final flat stage of the Vuelta, a 186.1km route from Ejea de los Caballeros to Lleida before two final summit finishes in the Pyrenees mountains, which will almost certainly determine the winner of the race, which culminates with Sunday’s procession through Madrid.


Vuelta a Espana 2018 – stage 17 results (Getxo – Balcón de Bizkaia):

1Michael Woods (EF Education First-Drapac)

4:09:48

2Dylan Teuns (BMC)

+05”

3David De La Cruz (Team Sky)

+10”

4Rafal Majka (Bora-hansgrohe)

+13”

5Ilnur Zakarin (Katusha-Alpecin)

+38”

6Alessandro De Marchi (BMC)

+44”

7Amanuel Ghebreigzabhier (Dimension Data)

+48”

8Jesus Herrada (Cofidis)

+51”

9Jai Hindley (Team Sunweb)

+55”

10Vincenzo Nibali (Bahrain-Merida)

+01’48”

11Stephane Rossetto (Cofidis)

,,

12Merhawi Kudus (Dimension Data)

+01’51”

13Jonathan Castroviejo (Team Sky)

+01’57”

14Enric Mas (Quick-Step Floors)

+02’40”

15Alejandro Valverde (Movistar)

,,

16Hector Saez Benito (Euskadi-Murias)

+02’44”

17Simon Yates (Mitchelton-Scott)

+02’48”

18Miguel Angel Lopez (Astana)

+02’50”

19Omar Fraile (Astana)

+02’52”

20Cristian Rodriguez (Caja Rural-Seguros RGA)

+02’53”

 

General classification after stage 17:

1Simon Yates (Mitchelton-Scott)

69:05:34

2Alejandro Valverde (Movistar)

+25”

3Enric Mas (Quick-Step Floors)

+01’22”

4Miguel Angel Lopez (Astana)

+01’36”

5Steven Kruijswijk (LottoNL-Jumbo)

+01’48”

6Nairo Quintana (Movistar)

+02’11”

7Ion Izagirre (Bahrain-Merida)

+04’09”

8Rigoberto Uran (EF Education First-Drapac)

+04’36”

9Thibaut Pinot (Groupama-FDJ)

+05’31”

10Tony Gallopin (AG2R La Mondiale)

+06’05”

11Emanuel Buchmann (Bora-hansgrohe)

+06’33”

12Wilco Kelderman (Team Sunweb)

+09’15”

13David De La Cruz (Team Sky)

+09’19”

14Rafal Majka (Bora-hansgrohe)

+10’27”

15Gianluca Brambilla (Trek-Segafredo)

+11’35”

16Jack Haig (Mitchelton-Scott)

+14’40”

17Rudy Molard (Groupama-FDJ)

+17’31”

18Fabio Aru (UAE Team Emirates)

+22’00”

19Hermann Pernsteiner (Bahrain-Merida)

+25’20”

20Mikel Bizkarra (Euskadi-Murias)

+26’28”

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