EF Education’s Michael Woods has won stage seventeen of
the 73rd Vuelta A Espana.
Stage Seventeen saw the race in Basque
Country and a 157km stage from Getxo to Balcón de Bizkaia with
Mitchelton Scott’s Simon Yates in the red jersey.
Thomas De Gendt took the early
sprint before a break of Vincenzo Nibali (Bahrain-Merida),
Alexandre Geniez (AG2R-La Mondiale), Omar Fraile (Astana), Alessandro De
Marchi, Dylan Teuns (BMC Racing Team), Rafal Majka, Lukas Pöstlberger
(Bora-hansgrohe), Thomas De Gendt (Lotto-Soudal), Andrey Amador (Movistar
Team), Amanuel Ghebreigzabhier (Dimension Data), Simon Clarke, Michael Woods
(Education First-Drapac), Ilnur Zakarin (Katusha-Alpecin), David De La Cruz,
Jonathan Castroviejo (Team Sky), Jai Hindley (Team Sunweb), Bauke Mollema
(Trek-Segafredo), Cristian Rodríguez (Caja Rural-Seguros RGA), Jesus Herrada, Stéphane
Rossetto (Cofidis) and Hector Saez (Euskadi) formed.
Through
Bilbao with a lead of just under six minutes with Oscar Fraile, who met his
family and friends after thirty kilometres, taking the next sprint.
Into
the final one hundred kilometres of the stage and the gap was at 6.49 on a day
where temperatures were around thirty degrees.
The
gap went out to 8.17 and 8.26 on the Alto de San Juan de Gaztelugatxe
climb which Thomas De Gendt was first over and took the three points in the
fog.
On
the first climb of the Alto del Balcon de Bizkaia.and De Gendt moved into the KOM
jersey when he was first over the top as Mitchelton Scott worked to bring the
gap down to under five minutes.
The
pace continued on the Alto de Santa Eufemia and De Gendt took three more points
before Simon Clarke and Woods pushed off the front.
Aru
crashed and did not look happy about his bike with six kilometres to go.
Four
riders including Wood led with 2.8kms on a climb which had ramps of 25%.
De
La Cruz of Team Sky went again with Woods and they had a short lead with 1.3kms
to go.
Rafa
Majka joined the leaders and as did Dylan Teuns, who then attacked before Woods
went again wit four hundred metres to go.
Through
the clouds and Woods was still pushing on and he took the win in 4.09.48 with
Teuns second ahead of De La Cruz and Majka.
Simon
Yates finished 2.45 down to stay in the race lead by 25 seconds.
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