Vuelta a Espana 2017 : Stage 12 – Marczynski doubles up, Contador attacks, Froome crashes twice


Lotto Soudal’s Tomasz Marczynski is on fire. The Polish debutant jumped away from his remaining breakaway companions on the final climb, and soloed in to add stage 12 to the stage 6 victory he claimed last week. Has anyone checked the profile for stage 18? Tomasz is on a ‘six’ roll! Behind him, what looked odds on to be a comfortable day for the GC riders as the break played for the win, suddenly lit up as Alberto Contador (Trek-Segafredo) – who else?-  also attacked on the final climb. Sky looked like they had things under control until Chris Froome crashed twice on the descent causing him to lose contact with the GC favourites who couldn’t quite decide if they should wait or chase a rampant Contador. At the end of the day Froome lost time on a hat-full of rivals. He holds onto his red Jersey but his advantage over Vincenzo Nibali (Bahrain-Merida) dips below a minute. Contador claws back 42secs and now lies one minute off the podium.
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Vuelta a Espana 2017 : Stage 6 – Marczynski makes his Grand Tour mark

Another hot day, another lumpy parcours and another win from a big break. Victory was contested in a three-up sprint between Enric Mas,  Pawel Poljanski and Tomasz  Marczynski who were part of today’s mass break-out on stage 6 of Vuelta a Espana 2017. The trio emerged at the front of the race with about 30km to go, just before the final summit. Mas led into the last 500m but was mugged by the more experienced Poles, with Marczynski emerging victorious and his compatriot taking second while Mas faded. Most of the favourites, including race leader Chris Froome, finished 26 seconds behind the podium. The big loser (17 secs) of the day was Tejay van Garderen with a crash, a puncture and a second crash.  Continue reading

Giro shorts: Stage 12 review

Stage 12 – Seravezza to Sestri Levante, 155km

Stage profile: A rolling day with four categorised climbs, with the last the third category climb of Villa Cassani which leads into a tricky downhill then flat run to the finish in Sestri Levante. The undulating profile favours a successful breakaway.

Top three: 1.Lars Bak (Lotto-Belisol), 2. Sandy Casar (FDJ-BigMat) +0:11, 3. Andrey Amador (Movistar) same time.

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