Four months after he briefly held the leader's jersey in the Giro d'Italia, Fabio Aru (Astana) claimed the top spot overall in a Grand Tour once again in the Vuelta a Espana on Wednesday after a devastating mountain ride to Cortals d'Encamp.
Nairo Quintana (Movistar) had forecast Aru would make his move on Wednesday's ultra hard stage and pointed to the young Italian's relative freshness compared to those riders who had done the Tour-Vuelta double.
The Colombian was proved 100 percent correct, as Aru, second in the Giro, soared away from the main group of favourites with 8.5 kilometres to go, by chance just a few hundred metres from the stretch of road where his teammate Mikel Landa had attacked the break a few minutes earlier.
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Aru had already bounded away from the other favourites on stage 7 to the Alto de Capileira but closer to the summit finish. This time, his move was from much further out, and designed to do much more damage.
"I wanted to ride my own race, when I saw the rest of the contenders were watching each other, I attacked aiming to give it everything. I suffered a lot," he explained afterwards.
Aru then dropped Katusha duo Joaquim Rodriguez and Dani Moreno, the only riders able to follow him initially, half-way up the climb with another surging attack. But although American breakaway Ian Boswell (Sky) bravely tried to stick with Aru closer to the finish on the sweeping, steady, upper slopes, the 25-year-old Italian stormed away again to solo to the line in second place - and the race lead. The first of the pre-race favourites, Rodriguez, to reach the line was 37 seconds behind after Aru's display of climbing firepower.
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