Joaquim Rodriguez (Katusha) moved to within a second of Fabio Aru’s (Astana) race lead with a captivating win on stage 15 of the Vuelta a Espana.
The Spaniard dropped his main GC rivals on the final climb and although Aru gave chase, along with Rafal Majka (Tinkoff-Saxo), he was unable to close the gap with Rodriguez picking up a precious 10-second time bonus courtesy of his win. Majka crossed the line in second, with Aru fading at the line.
Rodriguez finished the stage 12 seconds clear of Majka, with Daniel Moreno taking third ahead of Nairo Quintana (Movistar). The Colombian climber had put his team to work for most of the stage after he was able to claw back a handful of seconds on Aru during stage 14. Quintana even managed a stinging attack with 10km to go, but Astana were quick to spot the danger, reeling in the Tour runner-up.
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Astana then assumed control and bridged over the remnants of the day’s early break, but despite the pace setting from Aru’s men and then from Movistar’s Giovanni Visconti, the main GC favourites remained grouped together.
Tom Dumoulin’s position looked precarious, however, with the Giant-Alpecin rider hanging onto the leaders as they went through the 7km to go banner. When the inevitable came he set about limiting his loses. At first he held the Aru group at a manageable 20 seconds, but when Astana lifted the pace he was unable to respond and the gap quickly opened out to over a minute.
Quintana’s second attack, however, failed to materialise and it was Rodriguez who assumed control as the gradient kicked up inside the final 2km. There wasn’t a sudden acceleration – the terrain wouldn’t allow for that – just a move to the front and push on the pedals that had his rivals on the back foot. Quintana cracked immediately, with only Aru and Majka able to give chase.
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