It was expected that Nairo Quintana on the Alto de les Praeres would pull out the wings of the Condor after the first timid glimpse on Friday on the Camperona but it was he who disappointed on the final wall of the stage, unable to react in the last 500 meters from the asphyxiating slopes to the winning spurt of Simon Yates until Valverde, Lopez and Pinot also lost their wheels. Nothing compromised, a matter of a few seconds but important for understanding how the forces in the field vary: Yates, back in the red jersey, appeared to be the most toned of all, tactically good at not wasting energy after the lesson suffered in the recent last Giro of Italy. Many other mountains (and Tuesday's time trial) await the riders starting with today's long ascent to Lago de Covadonga: everything remains open with this very short ranking which sees a poker of big names collected in less than a minute, with second, Valverde , just 20" followed by Quintana at 25" and Lopez at 47". Without forgetting that Kruijwijck and Uran, fifth and sixth, are also less than a minute and a half away. However, the sensations change, the positive ones that at the top of the Camperona turned in favor of Quintana, despite not having done amazing things, yesterday moved in the direction of Yates, Bury's elf. Even at Movistar, given Valverde's form and Quintana's lack of propensity to attack, the problem of choosing the number one arises again, which until Camperona seemed oriented towards the Colombian.
Quintana disappointed but not yesterday's stage which was the most beautiful and hard fought of the Vuelta so far with the big names who took over the reins of the race in the final climb after one of them, Mikal Kwiatkowski, tried to blow up the bench going on the run with five other teammates who he then left on the road grinding kilometers and climbs alone, an action of strength and class by the Polish champion that only ended on the final ramps of Les Praeres. Leading the pursuit of the group of the best, on the last col before the final ascent, was a newfound Nibali who ventured into very long tirades as if he wanted to test. And the answer given by the Shark must have been more than positive given that at a certain point he decided to row in the boat, showing the camera his tongue hanging out as a joke with a smile that says a lot about the newfound good humor of the Shark. Italian champion. Even Fabio Aru, despite losing other seconds, finished in the top ten at the finish line, going up from 17th to 13th place in the standings, 3'26” behind Yates.
