Rafel Majka (Bora-Hansgrohe) soloed his way to the finish atop the first 'especial'-rated climb of the Vuelta a España to win Saturday's 14th stage from the early break. Miguel Angel Lopez (Astana) earned runner-up honours, 27 seconds down, with Vincenzo Nibali (Bahrain Merida) taking third at 31.
Race leader Chris Froome (Team Sky) came home fourth just behind Nibali and retained his race lead.
The long and difficult climb had its effect on the overall rankings. While the top two easily held on to their places, the rest of the top 10 changed around. Esteban Chavez (Orica-Scott) put up a strong effort with an early attempt to jump away, but couldn't keep up in the end and dropped to fifth, 2:39 down. Wilco Kelderman (Sunweb) who finished in the same time as the Nibali group, moved up to third, 2:17 behind Froome with Ilnur Zakarin (Katusha), also in that group, now sitting fourth at 2:25.
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Fabio Aru (Astana) lost an additional 30 seconds on Froome as he struggled on the climb. Contador may have dropped some seconds to Froome at the end, but still moved up to eighth overall, at 3:19.
Majka was the sole remaining rider from a breakaway group which formed early in the 175km stage. Originally a ten-man group with a gap of over seven minutes, the gap was down to three minutes as the second climb of the day started. That split the group, and soon there were only five in the lead. The steep start to the final climb saw the group fragment, and Majka started his solo flight with 10 kilometres to go.
In the overall standings, Froome now has a lead of 55 seconds over Nibali, who picked up a time bonus of 4 seconds after beating the red jersey to third on the stage, while Chaves slips two places to 5th overall behind Kelderman and Zakarin.
How it unfolded
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