Juan Jose Cobo of the Geox team took possession of the red jersey from Bradley Wiggins on Sunday after the Englishman failed to defend his overall lead on the punishing climb to the notorious Angliru.
Cobo began the 15th stage, the third consecutive day in the high mountains, with a 55-second deficit on Wiggins, but gthe Team Sky leader zigzagged his way up the final steep pitches to finish 1 minute, 21 seconds behind the Spaniard to drop to third.
Spaniard Cobo now leads Team Sky’s Christopher Froome — who once again played a major role in setting the pace for Wiggins up the climbs — by 20 seconds.
Photo: EPA
Wiggins is third overall 46 seconds back, ahead of Dutchman Bauke Mollema of Rabobank, while Belgian Maxime Monfort of Leopard-Trek was fifth, 2 minutes, 37 seconds back.
The day spelled the end of the road for Belgium’s Tom Boonen, who suffered a fracture to his left hand after a fall.
The accident looks to have put paid to the Quick Step rider’s participation in the upcoming world championships in Copenhagen.
“I’m very disappointed,” the stricken rider said. “My world championship preparation was going perfectly, then bang, everything falls apart in a matter of seconds due to this fall, caused by bumping in the peloton.”
For the second consecutive day defending race champion Vicenzo Nibali lost time on the ride to the summit finish line, the Italian trailing home 2 minutes, 35 seconds behind Cobo and more than a minute behind Wiggins.
The Liquigas rider dropped one place down to eighth with a deficit of 3 minutes, 27 seconds to Cobo — his hopes of defending his title virtually crushed in the process.
Cobo, who had closed his deficit to Wiggins by more than 30 seconds to move up four places to fourth overall on Saturday’s climb to La Farrapona, attacked 6km from the summit of l’Angliru.
Despite Froome and Wiggins trailing by only 11 seconds at one point, the Spaniard pushed on ahead. By the final 3km, with the pitches of more than 20 percent gradient reducing Wiggins and Froome to an almost standstill, he had stretched his lead to more than 40 seconds.
“My plan was to attack,” said the Spaniard, who will now be relying on experienced Grand Tour pair Carlos Sastre and Denis Menchov, also of Geox, to step up in further support of his victory bid. “After yesterday’s stage, I said if I had the legs I would attack, so I did. I felt strong today. I didn’t know how I was going to finish the stage, but I finished it the best way I could.”
Yesterday was the second rest day in the race, with the action resuming today with a mainly flat ride from Palencia over 180km to Haro.
With six stages remaining, Cobo has taken a major step toward what would be a maiden, and largely unexpected, Grand Tour victory, but for now he is keeping his feet on the ground.
“I might be leading, but there are still six stages and they will be difficult [for my team] to control,” Cobo said. “But the whole team is doing well and we’ll try to hold on all the way to Madrid.”
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