Roche Bounces Back

Conor here with the threadjack -

Nicolas Roche took a fantastic victory, outsprinting the amazingly visible Haimar Zubeldia in a 2-up sprint in Riaza. Cyril Gautier was alone ahead of the 24-man break when Roche attacked up to him, soon dropping the Frenchman. Roche ploughed on solo for a time, before Zubeldia made his way up to the Irishman. They crested the climb together, with the threat of the fast Goncalves behind them, and descended like stones before making it to the finish line. Roche opened up the sprint, and led all the way to the line, holding off Zubeldia's desperate lunge. After a disappointing seven days of crashes and setbacks, Roche has redeemed his Vuelta.

Back at Desperateattackville, Fabio Aru attacked several times, aiming to dispatch Tom Dumoulin, but the race leader seemed untroubled, often getting gaps on the rest of the peloton just following Aru's attacks.

Stage Results:

The GC remained unchanged.

Roa - Riaza 204 km

Welcome to Day 1 of the "Tom Dumoulin tries to hang on to 3 seconds by the skin of his teeth"-show

Downhill sprinter of the Day: Alejandro Valverde

Movistar have to do something in these last days ,  this looks like a good project.

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