Team Sky has said with Chris Froome out of the Vuelta, its other riders like Nicolas Roche will have the freedom to get into breakaways and target stage wins.
With Chris Froome having been forced out of the Vuelta a Espana with a fractured foot before the start of Thursday’s stage 12, Team Sky has said its remaining riders will now have more freedom.
Tour de France winner Froome was the team’s leader going into the three-week race and was one of the strong favourites to take the third Grand Tour victory of his career.
However, he looked below his best in the opening week, only to come good on Saturday’s stage 9 when he finished 2nd and shot into the top 10 overall.
But yesterday he crashed very early on Wednesday’s stage 11, losing over 8 minutes. And when he was unable to bear any weight on his foot, an X-ray revealed it was fractured and his race was over. He suffered a fractured navicular bone in his upper foot.
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In his absence, Mikel Nieve is the team’s best placed rider overall in 8th place; 1:58 down on leader Fabio Aru of Astana.
Roche is next best, though in 21st place and 13:30 down on the race leader and over 10 minutes down on the top 10 his general classification challenge is over.
Team Sky said while the objective would now be to support Nieve in the general classification battle, it would not put all of its efforts into that task; though the Spaniard has been 10th overall in the Vuelta twice and 10th in the Giro twice.
The team added it has many strong riders in the race and that they would now have the freedom to go in breakaways hunting for stage wins.
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That very much opens the door for Roche and Geraint Thomas. Roche has already scored six top 10s so far in the Vuelta; his best a 3rd place on stage 2.
Team Sky’s sports director Dario Cioni confirmed with Froome now resting at home, the other riders would get their chance.
"Some of our goals might have changed from the start of the race but we still have our targets in this Vuelta,” he said.
“Mikel is up there on GC so one of them is to support him as our main GC rider. At the same time we're also leading the team classification and that is another goal for us.
“We've got a strong team here and we hope we can always have three guys up in a good position. So that's a big target and whoever wins that gets to have the entire team on the podium in Madrid.
"There are some really good riders in this team and we will support Mikel, but that does not mean that some guys cannot have a bit more freedom. As (Ian) Boswell showed yesterday, from a breakaway we can still be in contention to win a stage."
Thursday’s stage 12 took the riders 173km from Andorra to Lleida and ended in a bunch sprint won by Danny van Poppel (Trek Factory Racing).
Roche and the contenders all finished in the peloton, with no change to the general classification.
Friday’s stage 13 features three medium climbs on the 186km trek from Calatayud to Tarazona and looks like a day for a breakaway or some of the sprinters.
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