Henao makes the break in Spain

05 Sep 2018

Henao makes the break in Spain

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Sergio Henao battled to make the breakaway on the way to a ninth-place finish on the longest stage of the Vuelta a Espana.

Stage 11 was clipped off at a rapid pace, with the day’s break taking two hours to form on the road. After attempts from Michal Kwiatkowski and Tao Geoghegan Hart, it was Henao who was finally able to infiltrate a group of 19 riders.
 
The Colombian champ battled hard on an undulating 207.8km parcours, as the break split and reformed on the run to Ribeira Sacra. Alessandro De Marchi (BMC Racing) pushed clear on the final climb to claim a solo victory, with Henao coming home ninth, 1:50 back.
 
The race blew apart behind, with Michal Kwiatkowski and David de la Cruz finishing as part of a very select GC group. De La Cruz moved up to 12th overall despite dropping a couple of seconds at the finish. He now sits 1:33 back on the red jersey of Simon Yates (Mitchelton-Scott). Kwiatkowski retained 15th overall, 2:10 back.
 
Sport Director Gabriel Rasch admitted the rapid start to the day had not been a surprise.
 
He told TeamSky.com: “We expected it to be a hard start and that’s how it went. A lot of teams were looking to get into the break with pretty good riders like we did. The break finally went after 96km and we had Sergio in the group. That was good for us, but with Pinot there it meant the group would be controlled. It was a really hard day for the guys.
 
“Kwiato and David looked pretty comfortable in that group in the end. The last descent was a bit sketchy but they were there at the finish.”

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Stage 11 result:

1. Alessandro De Marchi (BMC Racing) 4:52:38
2. Jhonatan Restrepo (Katusha-Alpecin) +28"
3. Franco Pellizotti (Bahrain-Merida) +59"
4. Nans Peters (Ag2r-La Mondiale) +1:24"
5. Dylan Teuns (BMC Racing) +1:45"
9. Sergio Henao (Team Sky) +1:50"

Overall standings:

1. Simon Yates (Mitchelton-Scott) 45:57:40
2. Alejandro Valverde (Movistar) +1''
3. Nairo Quintana (Movistar) +14''
4. Emanuel Buchmann (Bora-Hansgrohe) +16''
5. Jon Izaguirre (Bahrain-Merida) +17''
12. David De La Cruz (Team Sky) +1:33"
15. Michal Kwiatkowski (Team Sky) +2:10"