2018 Vuelta a Espana - Stage 10
After a rest day the Vuelta a Espana is back for stage 10, with riders taking on a 177km journey from Salamanca to Bermillo de Sayago. As we have seen from previous stages, Italia rider Elia Viviani of Quick-Step Floors is difficult to beat in a final sprint and stage 10 he proved he is one of the best sprinters in the world taking out the stage ahead of Peter Sagan of Bora-Hansgrohe and Giacomo Nizzolo of Trek-Segafredo in third. Simon Yates of Mitchelton-Scott also finished safely ahead of his generally classification competitors to hold onto the Red Leaders Jersey.
The stage started out from Salamanca and headed close to the Portuguese border where Tiago Machado of Katusha-Alpecin and Jesus Ezquerra of Burgos-BH made an early break. With their lead edging four minutes, the flatter stage left sprint teams like Quick-Step and Bora to control the peloton and make sure their lead did not extend much further. They were eventually caught with 30km to go in the stage as the riders took on the only hill climb for the day.
The final bunch sprint became a certainty in the final kilometers of the stage with Viviani's win never looking to be a problem as he sprinted to the finish with no one able to bridge the gap.
Overall classification after stage Six
A number of riders suffered punctures in the final kilometers of the stage including leader Simon Yates of Mitchelton-Scott. He was fortunate enough to recover quickly enough to not let it effect his lead and safely holds onto the Red Leaders Jersey for another day. He still only holds a one second lead ahead of Alejandro Valverde, but Nairo Quintana of Movistar has closed the gap to only be 14 seconds off the lead.
- Simon Yates (GBr) Mitchelton-Scott 41 hours 3 minutes 0 seconds
- Alejandro Valverde (Spa) Movistar Team at 1 second
- Nairo Quintana (Col) Movistar Team at 14 seconds
Tomorrow - Stage 11 Start From Mombuey to Luintra
Stage 11 of this years Vuelta a Espana makes a 208km ride from Mombuey to Luintra. The hilly course will be on the minds of a lot of the teams as in 2016, Simon Yates the current Red Jersey holder took a solo victory on this stage.
Link to stage eleven route map
The stage will have riders facing a long and tough day of riding. They will reach their first major climb only 20km into the stage with riders facing the Puerto de Padornelo, a 6.5km climb at 3.7% average incline. Then in quick succession a 9km climb at 3.6% incline, then an 11km climb at 4% incline, then a further 15.5km climb at 3.2% incline. Once riders complete the final incline, there will only be 17km till the end of the stage with riders needing this final descent before the closing moments of the stage.
The last few kilometers of the stage will have riders on a 2km climb at 7.5% incline, which will then leave riders will 3km remaining which will mostly be flat coming into the finish line of the stage.
I'll be covering each stage of the Vuelta A Espana, giving a breakdown of each days stage, my previous post for @cyclefeed were the results of stage nine of this years Vuelta, so feel free to have a look:
https://steemit.com/cyclefeed/@run.vince.run/2018-vuelta-a-espana-stage-9
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Please Note all maps are made by myself using Strava
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