Italy’s Fabio Aru sealed his first Grand Tour victory as Germany’s John Degenkolb finally claimed a stage win on the final day of the Vuelta a Espana on Sunday.
Astana’s Aru just needed to get through the 98.8km parade through the streets of Madrid unscathed after building up a 1 minute, 17 second lead over Joaquim Rodriguez of Team Katusha in Saturday’s penultimate stage.
Rodriguez finished second to record his third podium finish at the Vuelta, but a puncture midway through the stage saw him lose out on the green points jersey to fellow Spaniard Alejandro Valverde of Movistar.
Photo: EPA
Poland’s Rafal Majka of Tinkoff-Saxo finished third ahead of last year’s Giro d’Italia winner Nairo Quintana of Movistar in fourth.
“It is a dream, I am very emotional and proud,” Aru told Eurosport. “I’d like to thank my teammates. They believed in what was possible and I dedicate this victory to them, my family and my children.”
Aru trailed Tom Dumoulin of Team Giant-Alpecin by six seconds going into the penultimate stage, but, with the aid of his Astana teammates, Aru finally broke the Dutch rider’s resistance on the final two category one climbs of the race as Dumoulin slipped down to sixth.
“Yesterday was the most important moment,” Aru said. “It was really emotional, we did an amazing job as a team.”
Dumoulin’s teammate Degenkolb won four stages at last year’s Vuelta, but had been frustrated in the few stages suited to the sprinters.
However, despite his efforts in helping Dumoulin over the past three weeks, he had enough in the tank to sprint to the line ahead of Dutch rider Danny van Poppel of Trek Factory Racing and Luxembourg’s Jean-Pierre Drucker of BMC Racing.
“It really means a lot,” Degenkolb said. “For the whole team we had a big disappointment yesterday. The whole world saw that we were trying to defend this jersey and make it a superb success for the team.”
“It is like going to zero to 100 emotionally and now we can go home with a positive feeling,” he said. “We still had an awesome Vuelta to finish sixth in the general classification and winning three stages. For us it is a great Vuelta.”
Dumoulin also admitted that Degenkolb’s victory softened the blow of his personal disappointment.
“He worked so hard for me in the last three weeks and he made efforts that maybe other sprinters wouldn’t do,” Dumoulin said. “I am really happy that he won and that we helped him today. I cannot be unhappy today, it is a really nice end of the Vuelta.”
Majka was another young rider to impress as he made the most of his opportunity to lead Tinkoff-Saxo in the absence of last year’s Vuelta winner Alberto Contador.
“After the Tour de France it is not easy to be the leader, but I had the opportunity and I took it,” Majka said. “I hope to keep improving. First we have Alberto Contador, I need to still learn and maybe for the future continue to get better.”
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