The worst seems to be over for Team Colombia-Coldeportes’ Rodolfo Torres: after the flu put its mark on his performance on Saturday, when he also crashed, the Colombian climber showed encouraging signs of recovery on stage nine of the Vuelta a España, Torrevieja-Cumbre del Sol (168 km). On the tough final climb, which saw Dutchman Tom Dumoulin make a surprising double (stage victory and leader’s jersey), Torres came 23rd, 1:53 behind the winner.

The performance in itself wasn’t satisfying for him, but in the end it proved to be an important step in the right direction:

“It was a very hard and explosive finish, on which the favorites had to grit their teeth. Today I felt much better than yesterday, although I’m not at full strength yet: finishing not far off the winner motivates me to look forward to the second week, that has many climbs. I want to go for the KOM jersey, and I hope that on the rest day on Tuesday I will recover, in order to achieve this goal”, Torres said.

A breakaway of 13 men got clear after just a couple of kilometers from the start, with Etixx having three riders there. Still, their gap wasn’t in any moment a big one, because Katusha came at the front of the peloton and pushed a strong pace. After gaining a maximum advantage of 5:30, the group began to fracture on the steep slopes of the first ascent and was eventually caught 4 kilometers before the end, on the grueling slopes of the final climb, which topped 19%.

The last four kilometers seemed to last forever, but even so, the favorites launched many attacks, with Valverde, Quintana, Aru, Dumoulin all trying and Esteban Chaves chasing them all, until the Dutch cyclist of Giant-Alpecin put on another fierce acceleration, which distanced the red jersey wearer.

Dumoulin led for a couple of seconds until 600 meters to go, when he was reeled in by Chris Froome (Team Sky) and Joaquim Rodriguez (Katusha). The British winner of the Tour de France seemed poised to take the victory, but one last acceleration of the Dutch rider allowed him to have a double joy, as he took the stage honors and the leader’s jersey.

As if it wasn’t enough that the previous stage turned into a crash-fest, today, an incident occurred after only 35 km from the start took many riders to the ground, including Chaves, Valverde and Aru. Also involved in that crash were Fabio Duarte and Miguel Angel Rubiano, fortunately without major consequences.

On Monday, the peloton will embark on another stage before a well-deserved off-day, as stage ten will see the pack go from Valencia to Castellon (146 km). Two climbs are on the course, the last one finishing with just 16 km to go. For this reason, an escape will have a real opportunity to go all the way.