Timo Roosen put in excellent effort today in the 18th stage of the Vuelta a España. The neo-pro of Team LottoNL-Jumbo, currently riding his first Grand Tour, managed to get in the break of day after a fast start and stayed ahead until very late.

Nicolas Roche (Sky) won the stage. The Irishman beat his fellow breakaway partner Haimar Zubeldia (Trek Factory Racing) in a sprint-á deux. Tom Dumoulin (Giant-Alpecin) is still leading the general classification.

A group of GC favourites on the Puerto de la Quesera with about 12 kilometres to go caught Roosen. Because of strong effort, he managed to cling on for a few kilometres. Eventually, Roosen finished 24th, 1’21” behind Roche.

“When you are a first-year pro and you can still do this in the third week of the Vuelta after 60 kilometres of war after the start of the stage, you have great potential,” Sports Director Merijn Zeeman said. “Timo was even able to keep up with the pace of the favourites on the final climb. He’s riding a good Vuelta. Martijn Keizer had a hard day after yesterday’s crash, but he’s all right."

Roosen didn’t really enjoy his day in the break.

“It was really hard with much twisting and turning, up and down roads with bad tarmac. The cooperation in the break wasn’t good either, but I’m happy I was up there. The fact that I was able to do this is a good signal for the future and a real confidence booster."

Friday’s 19th stage runs 185.5 kilometres and takes the peloton from Medina del Campo to Ávila. Along the way, the peloton needs to tackle two climbs: one of third category and one of second. The finish is around 20 kilometres after the summit of the final climb.

“We’ll continue to attack until the final day of this Vuelta,” Zeeman said. “It’s getting harder every day, because a lot of teams still have their eyes on success.”