Slovenia’s Borut Bozic of Vacansoleil won the sixth stage of the Tour of Spain on Friday as Germany’s Andre Greipel of Team Columbia held on to the overall lead.
The 29-year-old captured the 176.8km stage that started and ended in the eastern town of Xativa and included two testing mountain climbs in 4 hours, 40 minutes, 50 seconds.
US rider Tyler Farrar of Garmin placed second, ahead of Italy’s Daniele Bennati of Liquigas.
Greipel, who won the previous two stages of the Tour of Spain, finished the stage in 10th place.
“It is a dream and I am satisfied for my win given that I arrived at the end of the stage stuck together with Farrar and Bennati. At 250m from the finish I decided to pull away and I managed to surprise them,” Bozic said. “In Slovenia, there are many teams, but none that are big and it is very difficult to stick out and be noticed by a big group to be able to leave and compete in the big world races.”
This year, the Slovenian rider has also won the first stage of the Tour of Poland, two stages of the Tour of Belgium and a stage of the Tour of Limousin.
“This was the hardest stage so far because of the heat,” Spain’s Olympic road race champion Samuel Sanchez said.
The seventh stage of the Tour of Spain is a 30km individual time trial, the second of the race, that starts and finishes on Valencia’s flat Formula One motor racing street circuit.
Swiss rider Fabian Cancellara won the first, a 4.8km course that began and ended in the Dutch town of Assen during the first stage of the race.
Last year’s top three finishers, champion Alberto Contador of Spain, US rider Levi Leipheimer and Carlos Sastre of Spain, have stayed away from the three-week event which ends in Madrid on Sept. 20. The 64th edition of the race began outside of Spain this year for only the second time in its history.
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