On the day after Nacer Bouhanni’s victory at San Javier, Tony Gallopin (AG2R-La Mondiale) soloed to victory at Pozo Alcon, this Friday. The French man made the most of a very demanding finale to jump ahead of every one with 2km to go. He had enough strength left to hold off World champion Peter Sagan (Bora-Hansgrohe) and local star Alejandro Valverde (Movistar). Rudy Molard (Groupama-FDJ) retains the red jersey while Michal Kwiatkowski (Team Sky) drops 25’’.
It took them some effort but the first attackers of the day eventually managed to break away from the peloton. Alexis Gougeard (AG2R-La Mondiale), Michael Woods (Education First-Drapac), Floris De Tier (LottoNL-Jumbo), Nicola Conci (Trek-Segafredo), Edward Ravasi (UAE Team Emirates), Alex Aranburu (Caja Rural-Seguros RGA) and Oscar Rodriguez (Euskadi-Murias) built a 1’ lead after 6km but Bora-Hansgrohe immediately sent Marcus Burghardt at the front to work with Rudy Molard’s Groupama-FDJ and control the gap under 4 minutes all day long.
Kwiatkowski crashed
The gap was at 3’05’’ at the bottom of the first climb of the day, the cat-3 Alto Collado de Laude, and Marcus Burghardt (Bora-Hansgrohe) set a pace high enough to cut it to 2’55’’ at the summit (km 117), where Floris De Tier took the KOM points. The riders crossed the finish-line at Pozo Alcon a first time with 50.7km to go and a gap down to 2’05’’. The pack then picked up the pace and brought the gap down to 1’ as the race entered the last 45km.
Michael Woods (Education First-Drapac) tried to make the most of the final climb of the day but the hard pace from LottoNL-Jumbo and Movistar Team ended his move with 13km to go. Luis Mas (Caja Rural-Seguros RGA) was the first rider to have a go in a very nervous finale that saw Michal Kwiatkowski crash with 8km to go. Nairo Quintana (Movistar) also went on the move but Jesus Herrada (Cofidis) was the one who managed to open a small gap in the last 5km… until Tony Gallopin (AG2R-La Mondiale) went for his victorious move in the last 2km.
