Julian Alaphilippe (Quick-Step Floors) survived from the break to beat companions Jan Polanc (UAE Team Emirates) and Rafal Majka (Bora-Hansgrohe) to win stage 8 of the Vuelta a España.
Alberto Contador (Trek-Segafredo) continued his comeback to finish just ahead of Chris Froome (Sky), who again built up his race lead. They crossed the finish line 1:27 behind the winner.
The closing climb lived up to its billing. The Alto Xorret de Cati featured gradients up to 18 per cent, and as expected, it ripped the race apart. Much of the peloton was already exhausted by the nearly 200 kilometers in blazing heat, and fell back to let the contenders take over. Froome and Contador showed no signs of weakness, taking matters into their own hands.
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Esteban Chavez (Orica Scott) and Michael Woods (Cannondale-Drapac) were the last to try to follow, as Vincenzo Nibali suffered on the climb. Still, it was the Italian who led a small group over the finish line, 17 seconds after Froome and Contador. The last few kilometers turned into a battle between Alaphilippe, Majka, and Polanc. Alaphilippe found the energy to jump with two hundred meters to go and celebrated joyously as he crossed the line, two seconds ahead of the chasing duo.
"It's incredible. I didn't expect that I would win the stage today," Alaphilippe said after the stage. "For me, it was a little bit complicated, since two or three stages ago I felt not so good. But I think for everybody it's the same. We did a good start with the team, from the beginning of the race we were always in the front, and today, I was thinking maybe tomorrow was a good final for me, but today a big group took the lead after 40 kilometres. I decided with Matteo Trentin, he put me in the front."
Froome now leads the race by 28 seconds over Chaves, with Nicolas Roche (BMC Racing) third at 41 seconds. Nibali moved up to fourth at 53 seconds, while Tejay van Garderen dropped to fifth, a further five seconds down.
How it unfolded
The day started with the surprise announcement that Team Sunweb had pulled climbing star Warren Barguil from the race for ignoring team orders and riding for himself. The day’s other DNS was Sven Erik Bystrom (Katusha-Alpecin), who left with a broken scapula after crashing on stage 7.
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