Germany’s John Degenkolb won his second stage of the La Vuelta a Espana in as many days in a controversial finish on Wednesday as Australian Michael Matthews extended his overall lead.
France’s Nacer Bouhanni, who won the second stage, claimed he was blocked out by Degenkolb as he tried to pass at the finish line of the 180km stage from Priego de Cordoba to Ronda.
“I don’t think I changed my line,” Degenkolb said. “I stayed from the beginning on the right and if he wants to pass he has to go on the left side, because there was enough space.”
Photo: EPA
Instead, Bouhanni had to settle for second, with Moreno Hofland of the Netherlands in third place.
Matthews finished with the leading few on the stage and extended his gap over race favorite Nairo Quintana of Colombia to 13 seconds.
Quintana finished 5 seconds back on the stage along with Spanish duo Alejandro Valverde and Alberto Contador, as well as last year’s Tour de France winner Chris Froome, as a slight split in the peloton at the finish saw them all lose a handful of seconds.
However, Froome did manage to pick up two bonus seconds on the stage to move up to 13th in the general classification as he finished second in one of two intermediate sprints.
Despite his lead, sprint specialist Matthews knew his time in the leader’s red jersey was almost sure to come to an end yesterday in the first mountain finish of the race on the 167.1km ride from Benalmadena to La Zubia.
“I’m going to try and enjoy it tomorrow as much as possible,” he said. “I think from the start it is going to be pretty difficult, because I think a lot of the guys are going to want to go in the breakaway, because it is possible to stay away.”
“Putting on the red jersey for the last day tomorrow is going to be pretty emotional. It has been a really good journey so far with the jersey the last couple of days and I have really enjoyed it,” he added.
A flat finish into Ronda after a category three climb was always likely to favor a sprint finish, but two-time winner Contador led a breakaway from the peloton with 35km to go just before the final climb.
The efforts of he and his Tinkoff-Saxo teammates did not have the desired effect, though, as despite splitting the peloton in two he did not manage to break free of his rivals in the general classification, as Sky and Movistar reacted to keep Froome, Quintana and Valverde in the lead group.
The US’ Andrew Talansky, who won the Criterium du Dauphine in June, was one of those to lose out as he dropped 3 minutes, 51 seconds on the leading group.
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