Alessandro De Marchi Secures Third Individual Vuelta a España Stage Win pubblicato il 05/09/2018



Alessandro De Marchi Secures Third Individual Vuelta a España Stage Win


5. settembre 2018, Ribeira Sacra. Luintra (ESP) - The longest stage of La Vuelta 18 was covered at blazing speeds, favouring attackers such as Alessandro De Marchi (BMC Racing Team) on a very demanding course. The Italian rider was part of the breakaway that went after more than 100 kilometres of extremely intense racing. And he eventually dropped Jhonatan Restrepo (Katusha Alpecin) in the final 4km to claim the solo win, his third victory on the Spanish Grand Tour. Thibaut Pinot (Groupama-FDJ) threatened the red jersey but Simon Yates (Mitchelton-Scott) remains the overall leader.

The challenges lying ahead appeared to bring some extra motivation as it took more than two hours of aggressive racing at 48km/h to finally see a strong break get away. Vincenzo Nibali (Bahrain-Merida) and Michal Kwiatkowski (Team Sky) were among the many riders unsuccessfully trying to break away in the first 100km of the stage. The hard pace quickly saw Miguel Angel Lopez (Astana) being dropped off the back, trailing by 1’30’’ before making it back to the pack at km 88. The pace also meant the end of La Vuelta 18 for Nacer Bouhanni (Cofidis), Alexis Gougeard (AG2R-La Mondiale) and Georg Preidler (Groupama-FDJ), who all started the day with sickness and couldn’t keep up.

After 105km, a group of 19 riders with Thibaut Pinot (Groupama-FDJ) eventually managed to get away. Franco Pellizotti (Bahrain-Merida), Nans Peters (AG2R-La Mondiale), Omar Fraile (Astana), Alessandro De Marchi, Nicolas Roche, Dylan Teuns (BMC Racing Team), Rafal Majka (Bora-Hansgrohe), Léo Vincent (Groupama-FDJ), Tiesj Benoot (Lotto Soudal), Jack Haig (Mitchelton-Scott), Winner Anacona (Movistar), Ryan Gibbons (Dimension Data), Pierre Rolland (Education First-Drapac), Jhonatan Restrepo (Katusha Alpecin), Sergio Henao (Team Sky), Bauke Mollema (Trek-Segafredo), Sergio Pardilla (Caja Rural-Seguros-RGA) and Mikel Bizkarra (Euskadi-Murias) went with the French climber, who was 16th on GC (+2’33’’) at the start of the stage.

Pinot wins little time

They quickly opened a 4’25’’ gap before Movistar Team reacted as the race entered in the last 90km. Bauke Mollema went for the solo move 48km away from the finish-line. He was reeled in for the last 35km. Alessandro De Marchi and Jhonatan Restrepo made the most of the final climb, opening a 30’’ gap to the rest of the attackers at the summit (km 190). The gap to the peloton was still up to 3’.

De Marchi eventually dropped Restrepo with 3.5km to go, in the final uphill section and under heavy rain, and soloed away to victory. Education First-Drapac upped the tempo the favourites group, who only finished 12’’ behind Thibaut Pinot. Emanuel Buchmann dropped 18’’ and his place in the GC top 5.
 



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