Yesterday the Camperona, today the final ascent in Les Praeres, tomorrow the one in the Lagos de Covadonga: the Vuelta on Sunday evening, at the end of the "mountain trilogy" in this long weekend in Asturias, will have made a fine selection among the final contenders to victory in Madrid. Already the grim slopes of the Camperona, which surprisingly saw the solitary triumph of a completely unknown young Basque, Oscar Rodriguez, ahead of Rafa Majka and Dylan Teuns, said that Nairo Quintana, even without being the Condor that takes off, is among the big names, the one who appears to be the best suited to winning his second Vuelta. The Colombian has long been disappointing those who expect memorable feats from him – the last one in memory is his success at the Block Haus in the 2017 Giro which he then lost to Tom Dumoulin – but a short sprint in the last tremendous three hundred meters of the stage was enough for him to scrape together a handful of seconds on his direct rivals: 6" on Simon Yates, 17" on his teammate Valverde and Pinot, 20" on Lopez, 25" on Uran. In 2016, up here, Quintana took possession of the red jersey and then brought it to Madrid. Yesterday he limited himself to climbing up to third place in the standings, 1'56" from the red jersey Jesus Herrada, but getting just 8" closer to Simon Yates who seems to be the most formidable opponent, also because after the blow-up suffered in the Giro d'Italia the Briton is running careful not to waste energy on spectacular actions as he did wearing the pink jersey.
Behind him Quintana also put Valverde by 4” while he extended the lead over Lopez in fifth to 33” and to 43” over Uran in sixth. The Spanish Jesus Herrada is still in the red jersey, who conquered it, snatching it from Yates, thanks to the escape that went through in the previous stage. but the Spanish Cofidis Spanish already appeared yesterday in difficulty on the Camperona, will hardly be able to keep the symbol of the primacy today with the arrival, completely new for the Vuelta, in Les Praeres de Nava, a final ascent of 5 km with an average gradient of 13,5%. In addition to Kwiatkwoski, Fabio Aru ended up out of the game for the top classification, day after day, who also lost another 56” from Quintana yesterday. He is now 17th with over 4'19” behind the leader. Immediately out of the fight for the final victory, Nibali is fortunately recovering his condition: in view of the World Cup in Innsbruck it is good news for the blue coach, Davide Cassani who has always bet on the Shark to bring the rainbow jersey back to Italy. Even though the blue pedal is now far from the red jersey and the podium area, he still remains among the most victorious in stages thanks to the success of De Marchi and the brace by Elia Viviani, who is also proving to be one of the most formidable sprinters in the Vuelta circulation.
