Cistierna, Spain, Aug 26 (AFP\/APP):Jesus Herrada of Cofidis won stage seven of the Vuelta a Espana on Friday when an escape group beat the chasing pack over the 190km from Camargo to Cistierna in Castilla and Leon.<\/p>\n
The race ended in a razor-edge, five-way dash for the line with Samuele Battistella of Astana coming second and Britain’s Fred Wright of Bahrain Victorious in third.<\/p>\n
Remco Evenepoel maintained the overall lead as the main contenders took it easy with two major mountain stages coming up over the weekend.<\/p>\n
Friday’s main challenge was the Puerto de San Glorio climb with 22.4km at 5.5% incline to an altitude of 1600m where some of the sprinters were dropped, allowing the escape to make it home before the pack.<\/p>\n
The 32-year-old Herrada was overwhelmed with joy that soon gave way to tears as he sat on the floor sobbing and was eventually helped away by his team unable to speak.<\/p>\n
When he reappeared from his bus, Herrada said he was still pinching himself over his win.<\/p>\n
“It’s just wild, about 13km out they told us the peloton were catching us,” he said.<\/p>\n
“We knew coming to the line it was going to be tough, I just built up my speed and then maintained it and that paid off. I can hardly believe it,” he said.<\/p>\n
– Evenepoel looks ahead –
\nHe claimed a second win for Spain on this Vuelta after UAE’s Marc Soler won stage five.<\/p>\n
Evenepoel survived a mechanical problem with a wheel but goes into the weekend 21sec ahead of Rudi Molard and 28sec ahead of Enric Mas.<\/p>\n
“My immediate objective is to hold on to the lead over the weekend. It would be wonderful to get to Tuesday’s time-trial with a lead,” said Evenepoel, who on paper should punish his rivals in the individual effort.<\/p>\n
“But there’ll be a major fight starting from tomorrow.”
\nBig guns such as defending champion Primoz Roglic (1min 01sec) and Ineos Rider Tao Geoghegan Hart (1min 27sec) are within touching distance of the 22-year-old Belgian.<\/p>\n
Victor Langellotti (Burgos-BH) retained the king of the mountains polka dot jersey while Ireland’s Sam Bennett (Bora-Hansgrohe) keeps the sprint jersey.<\/p>\n
Two riders pulled out with Covid overnight as Andrea Vendrame and Jaakko Hanninen of AG2R fell ill with further testing pending on Monday’s rest day.<\/p>\n
That will be followed by a long individual time-trial where Evenepoel, on paper at least, should punish his rivals again before the Vuelta swoops into the south.<\/p>\n
Saturday’s mountain stage ends with a testing 10km climb at average 8.5%, while Sunday’s stage takes in a coastal run before a finale which is perhaps more fearsome with a short 4km effort but at 12%.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Cistierna, Spain, Aug 26 (AFP\/APP):Jesus Herrada of Cofidis won stage seven of the Vuelta a Espana on Friday when an escape group beat the chasing pack over the 190km from Camargo to Cistierna in Castilla and Leon. The race ended in a razor-edge, five-way dash […]<\/p>\n
\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":56441,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-56440","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-latest-sports-news"],"yoast_head":"\n