Warren Barguil continued to climb up in the overall standings at the Vuelta a Espana when he put in a strong ride on La Camperona in stage 14. Feeling good recovery from the past efforts, he is optimistic for the future despite the loss of teammate Lawson Craddock.

Warren Barguil moved up a place overall by the end of the 14th stage of the Vuelta a España today to 13th, a stage that saw Team Giant-Shimano lose it’s first rider of the race with Lawson Craddock sadly withdrawing.

Craddock was struggling from fatigue today, and didn’t manage to get into a group, leaving him out the back and on his own. Together with the team they decided for him to call it a day and stop before the finishing ascent, but he can hold his head high in the knowledge that he has ridden a strong duet Grand Tour at the young age of 22.

The 14th stage was the first of a double header of mountain top finishes this weekend, but it was not just the final climb that would test the riders today with an initial second category climb followed by a long first category ascent before the finish climb had even started.

Johannes Fröhlinger got himself into a strong break of 23 riders that pulled away early in the stage, giving the team a strong platform to have a rider up the road to help Barguil later in the day.

Craddock was struggling on the early climbs and by the top of the second climb of the day he was already a fair way back on his own. It was after this that together with the team coaches he decided to step off the bike, putting an end to what has been a promising first Grand Tour for the young American.

At the front of the race Fröhlinger let go of the front group to wait for the front of the peloton behind in which Barguil was situated together with Tobias Ludvigsson.

Fröhlinger and Ludvigsson helped to position Barguil for the final climb and then it was up to him to fight as best he could with the overall favourites going all out to take time on each other.

The breakaway at front survived to the finish with Ryder Hysejdal (Garmin-Sharp) riding away to the stage win, while behind Chris Froome (Sky) was the first of the GC favourites home in tenth. Warren came over the line in 21st position, 1’13″ down on Froome.

Tomorrow the riders will be in for much of the same, with the 152.2km stage to Lagos de Covadonga, finishing with a long ascent of over 12km to the line.

Coach Christian Guiberteau said after the stage: “It was really sad to lose Lawson today. He was really struggling early on and was quite a way down on his own at the back after the second climb. He has ridden a strong race here though in his first Grand Tour, which to be honest probably has one of the highest levels we have seen.

“We wanted to have a rider in the break to be able to assist Warren later on and Johannes did a good ride to get up there early on. He dropped off on the long first cat climb to wait for the group behind and together with Tobias did a good job in looking after Warren and getting him into position.

“In the end Warren jumps up another place on GC which is good. He is there, in the mix and riding strong at such a young age. He will only continue to develop and get stronger, and riding for the GC here is a good experience for him to have that added pressure. He is coping well and hopefully will have another good day tomorrow.”

Johannes Fröhlinger added: “It was good to be up front today, even though I have been suffering a bit the past few days with a sore throat and headache. It was a real fight for the first 30km and then we took control of the bunch for the intermediate sprint so John [Degenkolb] could take the points there. On the hill after that it was planned that I follow the moves and it worked well.

“When the group started to attack on the first category climb I couldn’t follow the front guys and decided to wait over the top to support Warren before the finish. It worked out well and he rode a strong final climb.”

Barguil also gave his thought after the stage: “It was a really hard day today and I gave my max. I hit a bit of a wall in the final kilometres which was a shame but I feel that I am recovering well. This should be key to keep challenging for the overall here.

“I’m maybe a bit less strong than some riders but I’ve recovered better than them. Today I finish ahead of some who were ahead of me in the previous days. It’ll be about recovering. Tomorrow and after tomorrow, there’ll be some damage…”