Rohan Dennis on Tuesday won his second time trial of the Vuelta a Espana, while Simon Yates added a few more seconds to his lead over Alejandro Valverde.
Dennis dominated the 32km stage with a time of 37 minutes, 57 seconds, nearly a minute faster than his closest competitors, Joseph Rosskopf and Jonathan Castroviejo.
“I tried to control the start and the finish and push in the middle section, and in the end it worked out perfectly,” Dennis said. “I knew I was on a good ride just looking at my power.”
Photo: EFE
Steven Kruijswijk was fourth-fastest and gained the most in the general classification by moving to third overall, 52 seconds behind Yates. Nairo Quintana dropped to fourth and was more than a minute behind the pace.
“I’m happy with my performance. I extended my lead, so as far as I’m concerned it was a very good ride,” Yates said. “But we have a long way to go. I’m wary of the coming stages.”
“It’s still a long road to Madrid. I’m expecting some hard days. Our rivals are still very close,” he added.
Valverde lost seven seconds to Yates ahead of yesterday’s 157km 17th stage from Getxo to Balcon de Bizkaia in the Basque Country, where a tough climb was awaiting riders.
“The upcoming stages also suit Yates,” Valverde said. “We’ll go day by day, let’s see what comes out of it. I’m 38 years old now.”
Dennis, of BMC Racing Team, was the only rider to maintain an average speed of more than 50kph on the lumpy route from Santillana del Mar to Torrelavega in northern Spain.
The Australian had already won the time trial in the Vuelta’s first stage on Aug. 25.
Enric Mas also had a solid run on Tuesday, moving to fifth overall.
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