Discover the Stage 18 highlights
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DeportesTranscripción
00:00Yesterday, Caden Groves emerged from the rain and the chaos to win his third stage of this
00:05Vuelta, matching his performance from last year.
00:08Today, the GC battle takes a back seat once again, as the punchers and breakaway specialists
00:13enjoy their final opportunity.
00:16Stage hopefuls will need to use their legs and their heads and get the timing just right.
00:20Mauro Schmidt has learned that lesson the hard way with a series of close shaves.
00:25With the condition, I'm definitely happy and I also tried as hard as I can.
00:31Unfortunately, it wasn't good enough for a win yet, but I'll keep trying the next two
00:36days.
00:37Today is pretty good.
00:38It will probably be a bit too hard for the sprinter, so normally it's a breakaway day
00:45and I try to be in.
00:47Indeed, the breakaway has an excellent chance of going for glory as they battle their way
00:52over the twisting, bumpy roads of the Basque country.
00:55Familiar names will no doubt be on the attack.
01:01It's clearly a stage that's destined to go to the breakaway.
01:04We're coming to the end of the third week.
01:06This is perhaps the last opportunity for riders who aren't pure climbers to target a good
01:10result or even a stage win, so I think it's going to be very lively.
01:18Everybody is expecting today to be a breakaway day, so we have to be there in the breakaway
01:23and once we are there, we have to manage well the energy, the tactics, because we want
01:28to be a big breakaway, I believe, and of course, a guy like me has to maybe anticipate the
01:36final and that's the way I think.
01:39For Wismar-Lisepike, life goes on even without Wout van Aert, and they are determined to
01:44turn their collective frown upside down.
01:47We have to keep our heads high, that's the most important.
01:52Bad things can happen in cycling and sadly this year with Wismar-Lisepike a lot of times
01:57it happened, so what we can do is fight back and I think today is a day where I can maybe
02:03try to fight back and then tomorrow on helping Sepp to show again that we are still here
02:07in this race and still want to do good.
02:11Stage 18 is almost 180k around Vittoria with two categorised climbs.
02:16The first of them, the Alto de Rivas de Terezo, is fairly shallow, but the Puerto Herrera
02:21is 5.5km at over 8%, that's bound to thin out the field of potential stage winners.
02:29A lot of riders had predicted a big breakaway today and in the end no fewer than 42 went
02:37up the road, with the early average speed approaching 50kmh.
02:41The best placed on GC was Alexander Vlasov of Red Bull Bora Hansgrohe, almost 24 minutes
02:47down on Ben O'Connor.
02:49But in the early part of the stage the peloton didn't sit up and give them a big gap, because
02:53Ushka Teleskadi, riding their home stage, had completely missed the move.
02:58Several men in orange eventually decided to try to bridge across, they formed a chase
03:02group with Quentin Pache and Carlos Canal.
03:06There were plenty of big names up front, including Walter, McNulty, Soler, Vacek, Schmidt, Paul
03:11and Kung.
03:13Double stage winner Castrilla was also in there with the sprinters Groves and Bittner,
03:17so all manner of potential winners.
03:19Soler taking the mountains points to shore up second place behind his team mate Jay Vine.
03:25At this point Decathlon AG2R had taken control of the peloton and they were happy to give
03:30the break a bit more freedom.
03:32On the descent of the first climb, Kung attacked from the breakaway, going clear with Schmidt
03:37and Vacek.
03:41The Pache chase group now contained nine riders, but they were finding it hard to close the
03:45gap, with everybody still hammering along at more than 46 kilometres an hour.
03:50Kung, Schmidt and Vacek leading the main bulk of the breakaway by around 50 seconds, with
03:56the Pache group at three minutes and the peloton now at almost seven.
04:04The three leaders still had around a minute in hand as they approached the second climb,
04:08the Puerto Herrera.
04:09Soon enough we would have a clearer picture of which riders could potentially go away
04:13and take the stage honours.
04:16The front men would soon have company in the shape of the breakaway's strongest climbers.
04:21Cattaneo coming across with Vlasov and Kreuzweig.
04:24Another seven men would join them, including Soler, Pool and Castrillo.
04:31Cattaneo now leading the way up the climb, while back in the peloton Richard Carapaz
04:36had decided to shake things up.
04:39There goes Carapaz, big acceleration from Richard Carapaz.
04:42We know Richard Carapaz is more than capable of doing these long range rides.
04:47We saw that already on the stage into Granada, where he escaped the peloton and escaped the
04:51red jersey group.
04:54Carapaz whittling the peloton down to a small GC group with O'Connor, Roglic, Mass, Godo
04:59and Rodriguez, but no Mikel Landa.
05:02The Spaniard was clearly suffering.
05:04Carapaz sensing an opportunity to sink one of his rivals for the overall podium and Landa
05:09was soon 30 seconds down on the red jersey group.
05:15O'Connor also had a few nervy moments, but he managed to stay with Roglic and the rest.
05:20It was turning into a nightmare for Landa though, he soon trailed by over a minute.
05:25Thirteen riders now in the lead and a chase group containing Groves wouldn't catch them.
05:30Landa meanwhile was having to fend for himself and the gap was going the wrong way.
05:35Two races for the price of one here for the stage victory and to save Landa's GC bid.
05:41In desperation, T-Rex Quick-Step sent Pedersen and Van Sevenant back to help before sacrificing
05:46their chances of winning the stage with Cattaneo.
05:52Is Mattia Cattaneo going to drop back from the leading group of 13 riders and go back
05:57for Mikel Landa?
05:58Well, he is.
05:59He has opportunity and he's not happy about it, Nico.
06:01He's in a winning position here amongst 13 riders.
06:06The 12 remaining leaders hitting the final 10 kilometers, which had plenty of lumps and
06:10bumps.
06:11Landa was now trailing the O'Connor group by three minutes.
06:15With six kilometers to go, Kreuzweig made his move at the front, followed by Urka Barade
06:21and the Basque rider proved to be the stronger of the two, going solo as he looked to land
06:26another win for the remarkable Kern Pharma team.
06:32The man from Equipo Kern Pharma, Urka Barade, takes a look around over the left-hand shoulder.
06:38He's got a bit of daylight, but he certainly can't give up here because he's got a teammate
06:42coming and Urka Barade takes his first professional victory.
06:52The GC group rolling in at six minutes 40 with Landa three minutes and 20 further back.
07:04This is turning into some Vuelta for Kern Pharma.
07:07After Castrillo's incredible double, the wild card team now have a third stage win with
07:11Barade, the 26-year-old who was fourth at the recent Vuelta a Burgos, celebrating a
07:16first career success not far from his home city of Pamplona.
07:24The stage that's closest to home with my friends and family watching me in the final days of
07:29the Vuelta.
07:30When there are so few opportunities it seems very hard to win a stage and I've come close
07:34on several occasions, but this is incredible.
07:37We did an amazing preparation, so our success is no coincidence.
07:47Barade taking a sensational solo win by just four seconds from poor old Schmidt with his
07:52teammate Mikel in third.
07:53There was also another minor placing for Paul in fourth ahead of Vlasov.
08:00O'Connor is still five seconds ahead of Roglic, but Landa tumbles from fifth down to tenth.
08:05Everybody below him moves up one place, so Godu is now inside the top five.
08:10Groves made the breakaway, but he couldn't stay with the climbers.
08:13The Australian holds green by over 100 points though.
08:17Solaire did enough today to relieve his teammate Vine of the polka dot jersey.
08:21The two UAE riders are separated by just a single point.
08:26And it's as close as ever in the youth classification with Rodriguez, Skielmoza and Lipovic separated
08:31by 34 seconds.
08:33The GC battle resumes tomorrow with a summit finish on the Alto de Moncalvio, so do join
08:39us again on Friday and thanks for watching.