Dan Martin may have taken time from his Vuelta general classification rival Hugh Carthy in recent days, but today the British rider turned the tables and took a brilliant win on the Angliru.
The select group all looked vulnerable
at different times on the very challenging final climb and with about 1.5km to
go all of the main favourites were just seconds apart on the climb.
Carthy (EF Pro Cycling) had just pushed
ahead a little with Richard Carapaz (Ineos Grenadiers) and Enric Mas, the
Movistar rider who had taken it up very early on the climb.
And with about 1.3km to go to the line,
Carthy sensed a weakness in Carapaz and Mas and pressed on the pedals a bit
harder.
That effort drew him clear of his two rivals and once he saw he had gained on them he threw everything into his effort.
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With 1km to go Carthy still only had a
matter of seconds on Carapaz and Mas, who were with Aleksandr
Vlasov (Astana).
But Carthy was surging forward and the
chasing trio were struggling in his wake. Just behind them was Dan Martin
(Israel Start-Up Nation), who was chasing the four ahead on his own.
Just seconds behind the Irishman, Sepp
Kuss was nursing his Jumbo Visma team mate and race leader Primoz Roglic up the
final slopes of the climb.
As Carthy powered to the finish line for
a career-best win, Carapaz was briefly dropped by Vlasov and Mas while Kuss and
Roglic caught Dan Martin.
Carthy was delighted with his win, with Vlasov, Mas and Carapaz finishing in that order some 16 seconds down on the winner.
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A further 10 seconds elapsed before Roglic
finished in 5th on the same time as Kuss in 6th and
Martin in 7th place.
It was a great ride by Dan Martin, who
was the first of the general classification men to get into difficulty when Mas
began to press about 5-6km from the finish line.
However, Martin stayed composed and when
the road evened off even a little he caught those ahead of him.
He then dug deep all the way to limit
his losses on the men who are his biggest rivals for a coveted Grand Tour
podium finish.
Today’s stage result means Carapaz
re-takes the race lead, with Roglic in 2nd place some 10 seconds
down while Carthy has now dislodged Dan Martin from 3rd place in the
general standings.
Carthy not only gained 16 seconds on
Vlasov, Carapaz and Mas today – while gaining 26 seconds on Roglic, Kuss and
Martin – he also took a 10-second win bonus.
That means he is now 3rd
overall some 32 seconds down on race leader Carapaz with Dan Martin in 4th
place at 35 seconds.
Mas is now in 5th place at
1:50 and next, in 6th, is Wout Poels; the Bahrain McLaren rider some
5:13 down.
Going into tomorrow’s rest day, before Tuesday’s TT, the Vuelta now looks like a five-rider race for the three steps on the podium and Dan Martin is still very much in the thick of that fight.
The only other Irish rider in the race, Sam Bennett (Deceuninck-QuickStep) has survived today as he comfortably made the time cut, finishing in 149th at 38:54, with more than eight minutes to spare.
More to come.
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