Vuelta a Espana Stage 14 Results

De Marchi Wins Stage 14 in a Duel with Puccio

Alessandro De Marchi of BMC Racing Team pulled away from a breakaway group of 5 riders to win stage 14 on a summit finish. Fabio Aru (Astana Pro Team) battled Nairo Quintana (Movistar Team) and Joaquin Rodriguez (Team Katusha) in the final kilometer. Aru finished behind them in ninth place on the day, but twenty seconds ahead of Tom Dumoulin (Team Giant-Alpecin) to end the day 49 seconds ahead of Dumoulin in the General Classification Standings.

A five rider breakaway developed with 53 km to go in the stage after the first Category 1 climb of the day (Puerto de Estacas de Trueba); Mikael Cherel (AG2R La Mondiale), Salvatore Puccio (Team Sky), Jose Joaquin Rojas (Movistar Team), Carlos Quintero( Colombia) and De Marchi. For most of the rest of the stage, the breakaway group maintained a gap of eight minutes.  Since none of the breakaway riders were GC contenders, the peloton rode behind the breakaway with Movistar Team and Astana Pro Team leading the peloton most of the way.

De Marchi and Puccio attacked each other with 1 km to go. The two of them took turns leading going towards the finish. De Marchi finally pulled away with 500 meters to go to win. In the leaders group, going up the climb 3 minutes behind the leaders, Aru, Esteban Chaves (Orica GreenEdge), Rodriguez, Quintana battled each other in the final kilometer with Dumoulin behind this group.This victory was the second Grand Tour victory for De Marchi. Quintana seemed to have recovered from his illness of yesterday; however he has three minutes to make up. And the Individual Time Trial is coming up after the next rest day, where Dumoulin is expected to do well and make up some time. It is a question of whether Dumoulin can hang on in the next couple of mountain stages, with the support of teammate Lawson Craddock, 23 years old in his second year with Giant.

Stage 14 was a 213 km (132 mile) stage starting in the Basque capital of Vitoria running to Fuente del Chivo. The stage had a Category 3 climb followed by two Category 1 climbs, with the final Category 1 climb, Alto Campoo serving as the summit finish.

Sunday’s Stage 15 starts out flat but has a Category 2, Category 3 and a Category 1 climb, Alto de Sotres, at the finish of the stage. The 175 km stage runs from Comillas to Jitu de Escarandi.

Stage 14 Results

1	Alessandro De Marchi	Ita	BMC Racing Team	5:43:12
2	Salvatore Puccio	Ita	Team Sky	0:00:21
3	Jose Joaquin Rojas	Spa	Movistar Team	0:00:32
4	Mikael Cherel	Fra	AG2R La Mondiale	0:00:38
5	Carlos Quintero	Col	Colombia	0:01:00
6	Nairo Quintana	Col	Movistar Team	0:03:32
7	Joaquin Rodriguez	Spa	Team Katusha	0:03:38
8	Esteban Chaves	Col	Orica GreenEdge	0:03:39
9	Fabio Aru	Ita	Astana Pro Team	0:03:39
10	Rafal Majka	Pol	Tinkoff-Saxo	0:03:44
11	Domenico Pozzovivo	Ita	AG2R La Mondiale	0:03:44
12	Mikel Nieve Ituralde	Spa	Team Sky	0:03:51
13	Alejandro Valverde	Spa	Movistar Team	0:03:58
14	Daniel Moreno Fernandez	Spa	Team Katusha	0:03:58
15	Tom Dumoulin	Ned	Team Giant-Alpecin	0:03:58

General Classification Standings

1	Fabio Aru	Ita	Astana Pro Team	57:20:10
2	Joaquin Rodriguez Oliver	Spa	Team Katusha	0:00:26
3	Tom Dumoulin	Ned	Team Giant-Alpecin	0:00:49
4	Esteban Chaves	Col	Orica GreenEdge	0:01:29
5	Rafal Majka	Pol	Tinkoff-Saxo	0:01:33
6	Mikel Nieve Ituralde	Spa	Team Sky	0:02:10
7	Alejandro Valverde	Spa	Movistar Team	0:02:11
8	Daniel Moreno Fernandez	Spa	Team Katusha	0:02:13
9	Nairo Quintana	Col	Movistar Team	0:03:00
10	Romain Sicard	Fra	Team Europcar	0:03:39