“We will do our best to isolate Froome and then try to attack him” – Vincenzo Nibali

With his third place on yesterday’s fourteenth stage of the Vuelta a España, Vincenzo Nibali (Bahrain-Merida) made another small inroad into Chris Froome’s lead. With 4 bonus seconds, he now lies 55 seconds down on race leader Froome.

“In the last 100 kilometres,” said the Italian champion, “we have made a strong pace to try to make the race harder. Froome is obviously favoured in Tuesday’s Time Trial and so I must try to recover as much as possible in these two mountain stages.”

“No doubt that Froome is a great rider and he also has a great team,” added Nibali. “We will do our best to isolate him and then try to attack him. Tomorrow stage will be really tough and the route will have long climbs that I prefer”.

Directeur Sportif Gorazd Śtangelj went on to say: “The Sierra Nevada stage is only 130 kilometres but is terribly demanding. Unlike today, in fact, the first climb arrives after only 55 kilometres from the start and can already make the difference. It should be added that this stage comes after two very hard days and the fatigue will be felt in the legs of many.”

The fifteenth stage features two first-category climbs of 16.3 km and 8.5 km respectively before the summit finish of Sierra Nevada. Alto Hoya de la Mora Monachil. It’s 19.3 km long with an average slope of 5.6% and a maximum of 10%.