On the Balcon de Bizkaia, in the fog that enveloped Mount Oiz with its impossible slopes, the Vuelta experienced another day of cycling bordering on ferocious fatigue: the stage goes to Canadian Michael Woods, the best at taming the wheelies of the track final, preceding in no particular order the surviving companions of the day's escape which also included Nibali, increasingly recovering and 11th at the finish line 1'46” from the winner; behind it was the battle between the first in the standings, a challenge with several protagonists for days but which on the walls of Mount Oiz have fatally thinned: Valverde and Mas did well, who took the opportunity to gain even 8" on Yates himself, a jersey red more and more convincing even if Valverde came close to him second in the standings at 25 ", recovering what little he had lost in Tuesday's time trial.
Lopez is still in the game even if he punched yet another attack on the British leader ending up giving Yates 2”, a trifle of seconds but significant of the difficulty of the Colombian from Astana in asserting his climbing skills even in the stages of big mountain. For the rest, only many losers have emerged from the mists of Monte Oiz: first of all Nairo Quintana, who unable to react to the accelerations of Valverde, Mas, Lopez and Yates, got lost meter by meter, with a single burst of pride on the short finish straight ahead of Kruiswijck, another winner of the day.
For both, a delay of 3'44 from Woods but above all of almost a minute from Yates: Quintana in the standings slipped to sixth place at 2'11 from the red jersey, the Dutchman, who also paid for the efforts of the beautiful time trial of the the previous day, he left the podium finishing fifth at 1'48”, overtaken by Mas (third at 1'22”) and by Lopez (fourth at 1'36”). Stage with disastrous results also for Pinot who suffered from the hardness of the slopes, closing the stage 33rd at 5'26” from Woods.
Black day and bad luck for Aru who fell in the last descent of the penultimate Gpm, injuring several parts of his body: the Sardinian courageously wanted to close the stage 84th, more than 14 minutes behind Woods. Today finally only flat before the two high mountain stages in the Andorra Pyrenees.
