Vuelta: Stage 13

Matteo Trentin sprinted to his third victory at this year’s Vuelta a España on Stage 13, Chris Froome continues to lead overall

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Vuelta: Stage 13

Trentin benefited from a strong lead-out from his Quick-Step Floors team to comfortably beat Gianni Moscon (Team Sky) into second place and Soren Kragh Andersen (Team Sunweb). Froome (Team Sky) followed in seventh to remain 59 seconds ahead of second-placed Vincenzo Nibali (Bahrain Merida) and 2’13” in front of third-placed Esteban Chaves (ORICA-SCOTT) in the general classification.

The Stage
Already twice a stage winner at La Vuelta 2017, Matteo Trentin (Quick-Step Floors) made the most of a hard finale at Tomares to raise his arm a third time, on Thursday. The Italian rider dominated Gianni Moscon (Team Sky) and Soren Kragh Andersen (Team Sunweb) at the end of stage 13.

He brings his Belgian team a fifth victory at La Vuelta 2017, the same record they achieved at the Giro d’Italia and the Tour de France this season. Chris Froome (Team Sky) avoided any slip-up to make sure he’ll still wear the red jersey as the race heads into the mountains this weekend.

174 riders took the start from Coin for one of the longest stages of La Vuelta 2017 : 195.1km on the way to Tomares under the Andalusian Sun (up to 38°C). After 6km, four attackers were leading the way : Alexis Gougeard (AG2R-La Mondiale), Davide Villella (Cannondale-Drapac), Thomas De Gendt (Lotto-Soudal) and Arnaud Courteille (FDJ). Alessandro De Marchi (BMC) quickly joined them while Matteo Trentin’s Quick-Step Floors were immediately taking control of the peloton.

27km into the stage, the gap went up to 5 minutes atop the only climb of the day, where Davide Villella took the points to consolidate his Polka-dot jersey. The Italian rider then waited for the bunch and left his four companions fight at the front. LottoNL-Jumbo and Cannondale-Drapac also committed to controlling the race and the gap settled around 3’40” for most of the day.

The chase got more intense with 90km to go. The gap was down to 1’40” as the race entered the last 70km and then stabilised until the peloton made it to the outskirts of Sevilla. Alessandro De Marchi (BMC) was the last early attacker to be caught, with 7km to go. Bob Jungels (Quick-Step Floors) set a very hard pace to make sure no one could get away as the bunch faced a steep section with 3km to go. Trentin then displayed his pure power to cap off the day.
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Reactions

Matteo Trentin (Quick-Step Floors) “On paper, it looked less hard, especially from 3km to 2km to the finish, but we decided to go for it full, the whole team, except [David] de la Cruz, who is going to go all the next days until Madrid. The guys were incredible, amazing. Everybody did their job, everybody did everything 100 per cent, and I had to win. When the team is like this, you have to finish the work they do. It’s amazing because I came in this race with confidence, but I never expected something like this. Even for the team, the Vuelta is not finished, so we are waiting for more.”

Chris Froome (Team Sky) “I was just up there to make sure I wasn’t getting any time splits, but I was more excited to see where [Gianni] Moscon was in the finish. He did such a great job looking after me in the finale. I just said to him in the last 1km, ‘Go go go go go, try to win the stage’. If he wasn’t doing so much work for me he would have had even a better chance.”

“I saw how fresh, how strong he looked. I was in a safe position, so I didn’t need his help anymore. His time will come for sure. I think I’ve recovered well from my crash. It doesn’t have affected me too badly. Sure it’s painful, but the race goes on. I have the weekend in mind. It was an easier team for the team today, we didn’t have to pull.”

“I don’t think I fear either of the stages (on the weekend). On the climbs it certainly feels like we’re a lot more in control of the race. There are only a handful of guys who can really put us under pressure. So for us that’s what we train for and that’s what we’re looking forward to. We have two seriously really hard back to back days coming up. I think with Sierra Nevada with the altitude, being over two and a half thousand metres, that’s going to be massive on Sunday.”

Gianni Moscon (Team Sky): “Today was a typical sprint. It was pretty hard. We tried with Froomey to stay at the front and then, in the last 1km, we were in a good position and why not try? It’s a shame for the second place, but Trentin is a strong rider and it’s OK. We do always our job for Froomey, but today there was a chance for me. Now we are really focused on the climbs.”

Niki Terpstra (Quick-Step Floors) “It was almost exactly as we planned. We had to control the whole day because Matteo is doing really well in this Vuelta and he was the top favourite. The guys did an amazing job to control it. In the final, it was pretty hard, a pretty steep climb. I was there until 3km and Matteo was still in front with the two guys. It’s amazing how Matteo finished the job. You can have a strong team, but if you don’t have the finish, you are nowhere. He is extremely strong and we are really happy with him.”

Nicolas Roche: (BMC) (On his mechanical) “I stayed calm because there is no point in panicking at that stage. It’s really how the bunch goes rather than how you go. The team was really quick to react. It took a while for the car to get the information because Max Sciandri was giving us all of the information about the last few kilometers while I was punctured, and obviously only one person can talk on the radio.

Eventually when he paused, Damiano Caruso actually said it because when you puncture at the front wheel, my bike was all over the place so he called it before me. We changed pretty quickly and like I said the team was quick to react, Damiano and Rohan Dennis were there straight away. Rohan brought me back to the bunch and then Damiano straight to the front and then it was a much more explosive finish than what I thought.”

“On the profile the gradients were pretty similar so once I saw the first kick with 2km to go I knew we were in for a hard last kilometer. So it was very important to be up the front there. Already with 3km to go, I realised it was going to be a semi-GC day, not a full GC day because obviously when I lost four minutes the other day, seven seconds is not going to save my Vuelta. But, it was one of those finishes where you had to be in the front to not get caught out and I had to just fight for position and go to the line.”

Alessandro De Marchi: (BMC, in the break) “I went in the breakaway because I thought “why not?”. I thought we had strong guys but in the end we weren’t so strong because we lost one guy immediately on the mountain because he was just looking for the points and then the other three were not at their usual level, because they are really good riders. I think with the right cooperation it was a good opportunity.

I’m happy because I prefer to follow the feelings and today was a good day, so “why not?”. “Why stay in the bunch?”. Tomorrow I know that guys will ask me “why did you go in the breakaway?” and I will answer with “why not?”. I knew it was early [to attack] because 15km is a lot, but De Gent wasn’t too strong and he was already telling me that he wasn’t good so at one moment I just pushed a bit and he dropped. Then it was me against the bunch but it was too difficult. I think I will keep busy this weekend and try again next week.”

“It was a super hot day in Spain today,” explained Søren after the stage. It was a pretty hard start with some climbing at the beginning and the finish was really difficult and quite hectic with corners and a small climb thrown into the mix. I felt good and I had all of the support from the team, who did an amazing job to put me and Wilco in a good position for the climb.

I attacked on the climb with the hope that everything would split but my chasers were too strong so I moved focus onto the sprint. From then it was full gas to the finish where I took 3rd place. I’m proud of this result, mostly because of how the team worked together and how I rode in the final.”

Thomas De Gendt (Lotto-Soudal), most aggressive rider: “The chances for the break were small, but with (Alessandro) De Marchi we were strong. We were really not bad riders. We had a chance. We tried to go as fast as possible in the last 30 kilometres, but it was difficult. We didn’t have a big gap. Today I didn’t even sprint for the mountain jersey, it’s not an objective anymore.”

The Vuelta continues on Saturday with a 175km 14th stage ending with an especial-category summit finish at Sierra de La Pandera.
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Stage 13
1. Matteo Trentin, Quick-Step Floors
2. Gianni Moscon, Team Sky
3. Søren Andersen, Team Sunweb
4. Michael Schwarzmann, BORA – hansgrohe
5. Tom Van Asbroeck, Cannondale-Drapac
6. Vincenzo Nibali, Bahrain Merida
7. Chris Froome, Team Sky
8. Wilco Kelderman, Team Sunweb
9. Alberto Contador, Trek – Segafredo
10. Nicolas Roche, BMC Racing Team
11. Steven Kruijswijk, Team LottoNL-Jumbo
12. Fabio Aru, Astana Pro Team
13. Michael Woods, Cannondale-Drapac
14. Esteban Chaves, ORICA-Scott
15. Patrick Konrad, BORA – hansgrohe
16. Wout Poels, Team Sky 0:07
17. Ilnur Zakarin, Team Katusha – Alpecin
18. Guillermo Mas Lluís, Caja Rural – Seguros RGA
19. Loïc Vliegen, BMC Racing Team
20. Luis Leon Sanchez, Astana Pro Team

Overall
1. Chris Froome, Team Sky
2. Vincenzo Nibali, Bahrain Merida 0:59
3. Esteban Chaves, ORICA-Scott 2:13
4. Wilco Kelderman, Team Sunweb 2:17
5. David de la Cruz, Quick-Step Floors 2:23
6. Ilnur Zakarin, Team Katusha – Alpecin 2:25
7. Fabio Aru, Astana Pro Team 2:37
8. Michael Woods Cannondale-Drapac 2:41
9. Alberto Contador, Trek – Segafredo 3:13
10. Miguel López, Astana Pro Team 3:58
11. Nicolas Roche, BMC Racing Team 4:25
12. Tejay van Garderen, BMC Racing Team 4:32
13. Sam Oomen, Team Sunweb 4:48
14. Wout Poels, Team Sky 5:01
15. Steven Kruijswijk, Team LottoNL-Jumbo 5:50
16. Louis Meintjes, UAE Team Emirates 6:26
17. Sergio Pardilla, Caja Rural – Seguros RGA 10:16
18. Mikel Nieve, Team Sky 12:13
19. Igor Anton, Dimension Data 13:27
20. Darwin Atapuma UAE Team Emirates 21:14
23. Adam Yates, ORICA-Scott 27:59

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