Robert Gesink of the Netherlands won the Vuelta a Espana’s grueling 14th stage in the French Pyrenees on Saturday, while Nairo Quintana maintained his lead over Chris Froome.
Quintana launched no less than six attacks against Froome on the last of four mountain ascents, but the Tour de France winner responded each time to stay within a minute of the Colombian climber entering the race’s final week.
Gesink, riding for Lotto NL-Jumbo, fought off leg cramps as he surged ahead of Kenny Elissonde and Egor Silin to win the 196km route finishing at the Col d’Aubisque category-one summit after nearly six hours.
Photo: AFP
It was Gesink’s first win at a grand tour.
“I was not sure I could do it, but I kept on fighting,” he said.
The route, which started in Urdax, Spain, before crossing into France, was described by race organizers as one of the most demanding in the 71 editions of the Vuelta.
It lived up to its billing, with three category-one climbs setting up the ascent to the Col d’Aubisque, a classic on the Tour with its breathtaking views.
The route offered the chance for team directors to use tactics to shake up the overall standings.
Orica-BikeExchange proved the most astute as it succeeded in moving riders Esteban Chaves and Simon Yates into third and fourth-place overall respectively.
While Chaves pulled away late and moved to within two minutes of the lead, an attack by Yates on the third ascent helped him knock almost two minutes off the gap with Quintana and move into contention.
Quintana’s Movistar teammate, Alejandro Valverde, was the major victim of the mountain marathon, fading fast at the start of the last climb. The former Vuelta winner lost nine minutes in the overall standings and plummeted from third place to 19th.
The race continued on the Spanish side of the Pyrenees yesterday, with a 118.5km route from Sabinanigo to a category-one finish at Sallent de Gallego.
Revelations of positive doping tests for nearly two dozen Chinese swimmers that went unpunished sparked an intense flurry of accusations and legal threats between the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) and the head of the US drug-fighting organization, who has long been one of WADA’s fiercest critics. WADA on Saturday said it was turning to legal counsel to address a statement released by US Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) CEO Travis Tygart, who said WADA and anti-doping authorities in China swept positive tests “under the carpet by failing to fairly and evenly follow the global rules that apply to everyone else in the world.” The
Taiwanese judoka Yang Yung-wei on Saturday won silver in the men’s under-60kg category at the Asian Judo Championships in Hong Kong. Nicknamed the “judo heartthrob” in Taiwan, the Olympic silver-medalist missed out on his first Asian Championships gold when he lost to Japanese judoka Taiki Nakamura in the finals. Yang defeated three opponents on Saturday to reach the final after receiving a bye through the round of 32. He first topped Laotian Soukphaxay Sithisane in the round of 16 with two seoi nage (over-the-shoulder throws), then ousted Indian Vijay Kumar Yadav in the quarter-finals with his signature ude hishigi sankaku gatame (triangular armlock). He
RALLY: It was only the second time the Taiwanese has partnered with Kudermetova, and the match seemed tight until they won seven points in a row to take the last set 10-2 Taiwan’s Chan Hao-ching and Russia’s Veronika Kudermetova on Sunday won the Porsche Tennis Grand Prix women’s doubles final in Stuttgart, Germany. The pair defeated Norway’s Ulrikke Eikeri and Estonia’s Ingrid Neel 4-6, 6-3, 10-2 in a tightly contested match at the WTA 500 tournament. Chan and Kudermetova fell 4-6 in the first set after having their serve broken three times, although they played increasingly well. They fought back in the second set and managed to break their opponents’ serve in the eighth game to triumph 6-3. In the tiebreaker, Chan and Kudermetova took a 3-0 lead before their opponents clawed back two points, but
Taiwanese gymnast Lee Chih-kai failed to secure an Olympic berth in the pommel horse following a second-place finish at the last qualifier in Doha on Friday, a performance that Lee and his coach called “unconvincing.” The Tokyo Olympics silver medalist finished runner-up in the final after scoring 6.6 for degree of difficulty and 8.800 for execution for a combined score of 15.400. That was just 0.100 short of Jordan’s Ahmad Abu Al Soud, who had qualified for the event in Paris before the Apparatus World Cup series in Qatar’s capital. After missing the final rounds in the first two of four qualifier