Nicolas Roche (Team Sunweb) may have slipped out of the
race lead at the Vuelta today but the Irish rider can hold his head high after
fighting every inch of the way.
He coped very well for most of the final climb of Alto de
Javalambre to the summit finish at the end of the 170.7km stage 5.
But for Alejandro Valverde (Movistar) surging again and
again, Roche may have clawed his way back on to the favourites’ group.
In the end, however, the elastic between himself the
strongest of general classification riders snapped a little inside the final
2km.
Up to that point Roche looked like he might just close in
on those ahead until Miguel Angel Lopez (Astana) attacked hard with about 3km
to go.
And when he went, Valverde tried to chase him eventually,
with only Primoz Roglic (Jumbo Visma) able to stay with the world champion.
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Any chance that those who had been distanced a little earlier on the climb – including Roche – may get back up to them was wiped out.
But Nicolas Roche still rode very well; never panicking
when he lost ground and continuing to fight very solidly all the way to the
line.
In the end he finished 1:20 down on Lopez, which saw the
Colombian take the race lead and resulted in Roche dropping to 5th overall.
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The stage was dominated by a breakaway featuring king of
the mountains Angel Madrazo (Burgos-BH) with his team mate Jetse Bol and José
Herrada (Cofidis).
They got huge leeway from the peloton and approaching the
final climb they still had nine minutes in hand.
Madrazo looked the weakest on the climb and was dropped
by the other two but never comprehensively distanced.
Bol made Herrada do the majority of the work on the climb
on the pretense his team mate was just behind and he did not want to ride away
from him.
However, it was Madrazo who came good at the end; clawing
his way back up to the other two and then having by far the most punch in the
final kilometre to win it solo.
He took an emotional victory by 10 seconds from Bol with
Herrada another 12 seconds back.
Lopez then came through for 4th just 47 seconds off the
winner in the end, followed by Valverde and Roglic in 5th and 6th
some 12 seconds later.
Sam Bennett (Bora-hansgrohe) survived the stage and
retains his points leader’s jersey. He finished in 167th at 21:15.
The stage result means Lopez now leads overall by 14 seconds from Roglic, with Quintana in 3rd at 23 seconds. Then comes Valverde at 28 seconds and Roche in 5th at 57 seconds.
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