Dan Martin was forced to dig very deep on the final mountain of La Vuelta 2020 but he has hung on to 4th position overall and is now poised for the best Grand Tour finish of his career.
The 35-year-old, for the first time on this race, was
really on the back foot today when Richard Carapaz (Ineos Grenadiers) and Hugh
Carthy (EF Pro Cycling) took the fight to race leader Primoz Roglic (Jumbo
Visma).
Both Carapaz and Carthy managed to get clear of Roglic on
the climb up to the finish line atop the Alto de la Covatilla after 178km of
racing.
The select group split to pieces under the pressure applied by Carthy and Carapaz, with Dan Martin (Israel Start-Up Nation) one of the riders who went out the back of the group with about 3km to go.
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At the front of the race seven men from a huge early
breakaway survived to fight for stage honours with David Gaudu (Groupama-FDJ)
winning alone for this second stage victory.
The Frenchman was 28 seconds ahead of up Gino Mäder (NTT Pro Cycling), the young Swiss rider who denied
Ireland’s Eddie Dunbar a stage victory on the final stage of the 2018 Tour de l’Avenir
on the Col du Glandon. Ion
Izagirre (Astana) was
3rd today on Vuelta stage 17 at 1:05.
However, the real fireworks were
taking place back the road, about three minutes down on Gaudu as he climbed to
victory.
Carthy was the first to really light it up on the final climb from the select group with an attack with about 3.5km to go to the line.
When Carthy attacked, the group immediately exploded with Roglic, Carapaz, Enric Mas (Movistar), and Alexander Vlasov (Astana) forming a group when they caught him.
Carthy then attacked again several times before Carapaz
went with a big move in a bid to try and drop Roglic and win the race overall.
As Carapaz rode away it looked for a time like he would
gain enough to and that Roglic would lose a second Grand Tour this year on the
penultimate stage, with Carthy then attacking him and also distancing Roglic.
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The race leader was very lucky when Mas stayed with him and that duo caught Mas’s Movistar team mate Marc Soler, who was coming back from the breakaway.
Soler towed both Mas and Roglic up the climb for as long
as he could in the final couple of kilometres in an effort to claim time on Dan
Martin so that Mas would move up to 4th overall.
And then deep inside the final kilometre Roglic went for
broke on his own, dropping the Movistar riders and sprinting for the line in a
desperate bid to keep the race lead, which he did.
On the finish line Carapaz was 8th on the sage, some 2:35
down on stage winner Gaudu. Carthy was next, in 9th on the stage, and 15
seconds down on Carapaz with Roglic in 10th, some21 seconds down on Carapaz.
Starting out this morning, Carapaz was in 2nd place overall 45 seconds off Roglic, meaning he simply did not gain enough time on the Slovenian today and he remains 2nd overall.
After the finish line Roglic punched the air, knowing he
had done enough to protect his jersey and win this Grand Tour into Madrid
tomorrow.
He went to Carapaz and congratulated him after the stage,
also stopping with Soler and thanking him as the Spanish rider’s work went a
long way towards keeping Roglic in the red jersey.
Dan Martin finished a long way off his GC rivals; in 18th
place and 3:51 down on Gaudu. The Irish cyclist relinquished 1:16 to Carapaz,
1:01 to Carthy and 55 seconds to Roglic.
Martin also lost 48 seconds to Mas, though that was not
enough for Mas to leapfrog over the Irishman in the general standings.
Going into tomorrow’s final stage, which may suit Irish
sprinter Sam Bennett, Roglic leads overall by just 24 seconds from Carapaz with
Carthy 3rd overall at 47 seconds and Dan
Martin in 4th at 2:43.
Today Sam Bennett (Deceuninck-QuickStep) was in 142nd place in a group 39:22 down but he may well get a chance tomorrow to add to his stage 4 victory on this race.
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