Alberto Contador (Trek-Segafredo) showed once again that he is determined to leave the sport on as high a note as possible the Spaniard bolted away from the peloton on a hilly run-in to Gijon in stage 19 of the Vuelta a Espana.
Staying away to the finish in Gijon looked like mission impossible. But the impact of Contador's move, on the steepest segments of the third category Alto de San Martin de Huerces, 15 kilometres from the finish, was strengthened by having two teammates, Edward Theuns and Jarlinson Pantano, in the early break.
Already a great help to Contador on the final part of the stage to Antequera where he had dropped the pack on the last climb, Theuns once again waited to pace Contador as far up the road as possible. But after opening a gap of 45 seconds on the tricky downhill and then the flatter approach to Gijon, with two kilometres to go, a Sky-led peloton had reeled Contador in.
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"Today was a really difficult finish to reach ahead of the bunch, but we had Jarlinson to go for the stage win, and Edward [Theuns] to help me," Contador said afterward.
"There was a really strong headwind, so I put on a 55 chainring for the drop down, when we saw they were pulling me back, we put Edward on the front to pull for as long as possible and I tried to conserve some energy for tomorrow."
"It was a pity," Theuns added, "but there was a lot of headwind in the final downhill, we still had to push a lot and that's where I think the guys behind had a bit of an advantage."
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