Yesterday’s fifteenth stage of the Vuelta a Espana from Alcala La Real to Sierra Nevada. Alto Hoya de la Mora was billed as the Queen stage of the race. Despite being just 129 kilometres in length, the riders had to tackle the two Cat. 1 climbs of Alto de Hazallanas and Alto del Purche before the summit finish which was the highest point of the race.
The stage was won by Miguel Ángel López (Astana Pro Team) who finished 36″ ahead of Ilnur Zakarin (Team Katusha Alpecin) with Wilco Kelderman (Team Sunweb) in third.
As the fight for the stage win went on at the front of the race, another battle was taking place at the rear – the fight to make the time limit. Amongst those who was in danger of not making the time cut was Irish rider Conor Dunne.
Dunne did manage to make it to the finish inside the time limit, as he rolled over the line in a group of 29 riders, 30’38” after Lopez. His team-mates Adam Blythe, Aaron Gate and Peter Koning were also in the group meaning the Irish team goes into the final week with eight riders still in the race.
Afterwards Dunne said: “It was going to be a really tough day for me – with the big mountains and the time limit. I rode my rhythm on the first climb but the peloton were going too strong for me and I got dropped straight away. I just rode my threshold (power) for the whole first climb and went full on the descent and managed to get into the grupetto and then I just hacked home, job done.
“Next week we have a TT and a couple of less hilly days, if that’s possible, that I might do something. You never know. Let’s see what happened.”
That was a day for the climbers and it was so hot out…