Astana conquer the queen stage of the Vuelta and leadership

USPA NEWS - Doublet of Astana on the big stage of the Vuelta of Spain, the dreaded day from baseline in Marbella, which turned the top of the overall standings. Kazakhstan won the overall victory in Cortals d'Encamp with Mikel Landa, who was part of the large breakaway of the day.

Meanwhile, Fabio Aru finished second and became the new red jersey of the race, demonstrating his ambition in general. The 138 kilometers per Andorran territory began with a scare: the fall of Chris Froome (Team Sky). The British got up quickly and soon had the help of his teammates, but it was not until after the Collada de Beixalís when his group get reintegrated with the main pack. However, the British end up losing ground in the hen, practically saying goodbye to their options in the fight for the red jersey.

Nineteen men formed the breakaway at the first port of the day: Nelson Oliveira and Ruben Plaza (Lampre-Merida) Darwin Atapuma (BMC), Matteo Montaguti and Mikael Cherel (Ag2r-La Mondiale), Javier Moreno and Imanol Erviti (Movistar) Romain Sicard (Europcar), Omar Fraile and José Gonçalves (Caja Rural-Seguros RGA), Pawel Poljanski (Saxo-Tinkoff), Alberto Losada (Katusha), Mikel Landa (Astana), Damien Howson (Orica-GreenEdge), Jerome Coppel ( IAM Cycling), Romain Hardy (Cofidis), Carlos Verona (Etixx-Quick Step), Ian Boswell (Team Sky) and George Bennett (LottoNL-Jumbo). Of them would eventually stage winner.

The day offered moments of great cycling. It was a hard, difficult and uncertain final stage. They had to climb 1,000 meters in just 138 kilometers. A carousel of ups and downs, with a port of special category, four first and one second. An ordeal for tired legs of cyclists, with the aggravation of rain in the final third of the day, fell on the race. Finally there was so much screen as expected, although Froome was already ruled out of the final victory and Valverde showed their weaknesses. But the first overall three (Fabio Aru, Joaquin Rodriguez and Tom Dumoulin) are just over 20 seconds apart, and that's nothing.