Valerio Conti victorious in Vuelta a España stage 13
Sep 02 2016 11:53 pm CET
Valerio Conti (23) of Lampre-Merida has won stage 13 of the Vuelta a España, finishing solo after forming part of a 12-man breakaway.
The beautiful landscapes of the 13th stage, 213km from Bilbao to Urdax-Dantxarinea made up for the lack of action in the first 180 kilometers. A group of 12 rode away from the peloton early on and those remaining in the pack had no interest in catching the escapees.
With 21 kilometers to go until the finish line, the leaders had an advantage of 22 minutes.
The first attack from the front group came from Michael Gogl of Tinkoff and Lotto-Soudal's Jelle Wallays, but the two were soon caught by the rest of the group to restore the original balance.
The next big attack came from Lampre-Merida's Valerio Conti who built a stable advantage of about 40 seconds over a chase group of five with Gogl, Danilo Wyss, Sergey Lagutin, Yves Lampaert and Vegard Stake Laengen.
Conti's attempt proved to be extremely fruitful as the Italian continued to gain terrain in the last few kilometers and eventually finished almost a minute ahead of his chasers to take his first ever Grand Tour stage victory.
The sprint for second place was won by Danilo Wyss of BMC Racing Team, just ahead of Katusha's Sergey Lagutin.
The peloton, which was treating the stage as an additional rest day, finished at just under 34 minutes from the winner. There were no major changes to the General Classification as Nairo Quintana of Movistar remains in the lead.
