Riche Porte (Sky) put himself in prime position ahead of tomorrow's decisive time trial in the Vuelta al Pais Vasco as he soloed off the front of a select group of favourites. He distanced his main rivals by 4 seconds to take an impressive stage win while teammate Sergio Henao kept the leader's jersey.

 

Richie Porte had showed his strength on the final, steep climb of the Alto de la Olaberria inside the final 7km of the penultimate stage of the Vuelta al Pais Vasco and stayed in contact with Samuel Sanchez (Euskaltel) who put in a furious acceleration towards the top of the climb. As they crested the summit, the duo were only joined by race leader Sergio Henao, Nairo Quintana (Movistar) and Simon Spilak (Katusha).

 

In the treacherous conditions, Samuel Sanchez used his superior descending skills to open a gap, and only Henao was able to keep up with the former Olympic champion. However, Spilak took a huge turn on the front and managed to close the gap to the two escapees.

 

Pieter Weening (Orica-GreenEdge), Alberto Contador (Saxo-Tinkoff) and John Gadret (Ag2r) all managed to join the leaders as the group hesitated for moment. Porte exploited the indecisiveness to put in a small acceleration, and as teammate Henao allowed the gap to open up, it was too late to get back in contention.

 

Porte went into time trial mode and even though his main GC rival Contador did what he could to close the gap, the Australian was never in danger of being caught. He soloed across the finish line to take his 5th victory of a very impressive season after his previous overall victory and two stage wins in the Paris-Nice and time trial win in the Criterium Inernational.

 

Porte gained 4 seconds on his main rivals and remains 3rd overall, but he now just trails teammate Henao by 6 seconds. Contador follows a further 4 seconds behind and with the duo being the superior time triallists, we face an exciting battle in tomorrow's decisive 24km time trial.

 

Starting tomorrow at 14.45, you can follow all the action on CyclingQuotes.com/live.

 

 

A dangerous move

The penultimate stage was expected to be an epic one with the 166,1km taking in some very hilly terrain. It was up and down all day with 10 categorized climbs, and a number of the hills were extremely steep. The summit of the final climb, the steep Alto de Olaberria, would be crested with only 5,8km and with rain falling on the riders most of the day, most expected a hard-fought battle between the favourites.

 

Knowing that it would be difficult for the 6-man Sky team to control the stage in the hard terrain, many riders wanted to go up the road, and it took some time for a group to create a significant gap. After 50km racing, Rui Costa (Movistar), Jose Herrada (Movistar), Andrew Talansky (Garmin) and Egor Silin (Astana) managed to open up a gap of 30 seconds.

 

With Herrada, Costa and Talansky all less than 30 seconds behind Henao in the general classification, Sky was in no mood to let the group slip away, and the front group struggled to open up a significant gap. Their firepower increased moments later as they were joined by Jakob Fuglsang (Astana), Ion Izagirre (Euskaltel), Javier Moreno (Movistar), Mikael Cherel (Ag2r), Daniel Navarro (Cofidis) and Laurent Didier (Radioshack), and the 10 riders managed to open up a gap of 1.30.

 

Zandio and Kiryienka set the pace

Behind it was the Sky duo of Xabier Zandio and Vasil Kiryienka who set the pace in an already drastically reduced peloton. With Joe Dombrowski and Jonathan Tiernan-Locke both dropped, Henao and Porte only had two domestiques left with 85km remaining.

 

On the day's 6th climb, the front group splintered under the pace of Herrada and only Costa and Navarro were able to keep up. Talansky and Fuglsang regained contact on the descent while the remaining escapees were caught by the peloton in which it was now Kiryienka doing all the work.

 

Amets Txurruka and Omar Fraile (Caja Rural) had both taken off on the climb in an attempt to extend Txurruka's lead in the mountains and sprint classification, and the duo quickly managed to close much of the gap. With Txurruka tired after a hard race and Fraile clearly stronger, he chose to let his teammate continue on his own while the small Basque climber returned to the peloton.

 

Fraile managed to close the gap to the 5-man front group, and on the next climb the neo-professional continued on his own. Gorka Izagirre (Euskaltel) managed to close the gap to the group in a blistering attack on the same climb, but the riders in the break had no more energy left and were swallowed up by the Kiryienka-led peloton moments later.

 

Fraile against Kiryienka

During the next 40km, the race was a two-way battle between Fraile and Kiryienka. The Spaniard managed to built up a gap of more than 1.30 while the steady pace of the Belarussian saw more and more riders dropped from the peloton which only contained around 25 riders as they approached the day's final climb.

 

Inside the final 10km, Sanchez showed his intentions, and he asked Gorka Izagirre to join Kiryienka at the front of the peloton, and as a consequence the gap started to come down quickly. As they started the final climb, Izagirre was dropped, and moments later Kiryienka had no more energy after an incredible effort all day.

 

Sanchez attacks

Henao set the pace in the splintering group which swallowed up Fraile. Just before the top of the climb, Sanchez accelerated, and at the top the 5-man group of Sanchez, Porte, Henao, Spilak and Quintana was ahead.

 

Sanchez and Henao gained a gap on the descent, but they were caught by the chasing group which increased with the addition of Contador, Weening and Gadret. The latter put in a small dig before Porte soloed off the front to take his solo win.

 

Result:

1. Richie Porte

2. Samuel Sanchez +0.04

3. Sergio Henao

4. Nairo Quintana

5. Pieter Weening

6. John Gadret

7. Alberto Contador

8. Simon Spilak

9. Diego Ulissi +0.20

10. Giampaolo Caruso

 

General classification:

1. Sergio Henao

2. Nairo Quintana +0.06

3. Richie Porte

4. Alberto Contador +0.10

5. Simon Spilak

6. Pieter Weening +0.35

7. Carlos Betancur +0.37

8. Samuel Sanchez +0.47

9. Gimapolo Caruso +0.51

10. Diego Ulissi +1.03