Tom Dumoulin of Giant-Alpecin has won back the lead of the Vuelta after a battling performance during today’s Stage 9. He had attacked on the final climb but seemed to have been beaten by Chris Froome with a couple of hundred metres remaining – somehow recovering to overhaul the Team Sky man to cross the line first at Cumbre del Sol. Benitachell.
The Dutch rider launched his initial attack with a little more than 2 kilometres remaining of that final Category 1 ascent. It didn’t stick, but his second effort shortly afterwards did, and despite a counter-attack from Rafal Majka of Tinkoff-Saxo, Dumoulin seemed to be heading to the stage win.
But Tour de France champion Froome, still looking to make up the time he has ceded to his rivals during the opening week of the race, had other ideas, however. His attack, approaching the flamme rouge, put a number of big names in difficulty – including race leader Esteban Chaves of Orica-GreenEdge.
Dumoulin appeared beaten as Froome rounded him, but recovered to come back round Froome ahead of the line as he swapped the white best young rider’s jersey – he is just 24 – for the red of the race leader’s jersey.
Team Sky’s Geraint Thomas was one of an escape group of 14 riders who got away early on during the 168.3km stage from Torrevieja.
Behind them, the peloton slowed for a while to allow riders caught up in a crash to rejoin it. Those included Movistar’s Alejandro Valverde, in the green of points classifcation leader after Peter Sagan’s abandon, as well as Dumoulin.
The remnants of the escape group would be caught on that final climb as the GC battle was joined, with Dumoulin and Froome having most cause for celebration this evening.
A moped rider hit a van he didn't see because of the low sun on Traffic Cops last night. One of the officers said...
make the driver overtake you, rather than giving them just enough room to squeeze through...
Thinking on that - having the road police empowered to destroy your vehicle there and then for any RTA violations... ...
Good on her for getting back on the bike. It was a nasty crash. And it's a real shame the person who caused it has never been caught.
And another thing... on the mobile site via Firefox it can take an age to be able to click in the text box to get the cursor to write a comment.
That's a fair point to consider, I would only say to counter that that obviously cars that live in outer London boroughs don't always stay in outer...
Of course they should - if I can do it they can, I have to spend a lot more energy getting moving again. High time that should was made a must. In...
Planet X Tempest... just sayin! Never gets a mention but has consistently delivered great value titanium all purpose on/off road do it all bike/...
Worse than that, they have "singilarised" it (is the that the reverse of pluralise) to become PANT I though that was what dogs did
Had a set of these (original 2015/16 versions) in 25/28 on my 2016 Diverge. Fairly ok experience, found them a little heavy (coming from other...