Stage after stage, slowly but surely, Chris Froome is getting his hands on the Vuelta: even yesterday in the eighth stage from Hellin to Xorret de Cati the homonymous climb placed one step away from the finish was enough - 5 km with an average gradient of 9 % with peaks of up to 20% – to offer the Briton the opportunity to attack by detaching his closest rivals in his red jersey. Only a Contador, increasingly extraordinary in his latest performance on the cycling world stage, has resisted Froome's tirades. For all the others, from Nibali to Aru, from Van Garderen to Chaves and Roche, it was necessary to concede more seconds – 17 to be exact – to what appears more and more to be the master of the Vuelta. Now Froome leads the classification with 28” on Chaves, 41” on Nicholas Roche, 53” on Nibali, 58” on Van Garderen, 1'06” on Aru. Contador, who is paying for the delay in the third stage in Andorra la Vella, is moving up positions but remains 3'17” away from the English leader. The Vuelta is long and hard and the classification, even if it speaks more and more in favor of Froome, is still too much to issue definitive sentences. But never before has the Tour-Vuelta double appeared within reach of Froome as this year, who would be the third rider to achieve it after Anquetil and Hinault.
The fraction, as often happens, had a double race, one for the stage victory with an initial breakaway of 18 riders ahead, the other - as mentioned - for the red jersey behind in the group of the best crumbled by Frooome in the climb 3 km from the finish line. And it is on this climb that the French Julian Alaphilippe, Rapha Maika and Jan Polanc, the winner of the Etna stage of the last Giro d'Italia, left the company to compete for the stage. At the foot of Xorret de Cati, the Portuguese Nelson Oliveira of Movistar, the best placed in the standings of the 18 pacesetters, 22nd at 3'02", was still in the virtual red jersey as the fugitives still had an advantage of 3'20" over Froome group. Alaphilippe was good at not losing the wheels of Maika and Polanc who attacked him uphill. The Frenchman, back from a troubled season with a complicated knee operation, was thus able to let his best quality of finisseur prevail in the three-way match, preceding Polanc and Maika by 2” . Oliveira finished fifth at 28”. Contador and Froome, in strong recovery in the final, were the first big names to cross the finish line at 1'27”. Nibali and Aru arrived at 1'44”.
Alaphilippe's victory takes place on the day in which the best Frenchman in the standings, Warrem Barguil, leader of the climbers at the last Tour in which he also won two stages, including the prestigious one at the top of the Izoard, was invited to the start of yesterday, to abandon the Vuelta by the team manager of his team, the Dutch Sunweb, the one that won the Giro with Tom Dumoulin. The motivation: for having disregarded the team orders by not assisting Wilco Kelderman, the victim of a mechanical accident that made him lose 17" against Froome in the Cuenca stage on Friday, won by the Slovenian Matej Mohoric. A decision bitterly accepted by Barguil that he could have been a protagonist on the many mountains of the Vuelta. But the Dutch had chosen Kelderman as sole captain at the Vuelta and were inflexible with Barguil, who was increasingly convinced and happy to leave Sunweb to race for the French Fortuneo next year. Barguil was 13th at 1'43” from Froome and just ahead of Kelderman himself.
