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La Vuelta: Cobo storms to the summit to put Wiggins' dreams in doubt

Juan José Cobo put in a magnificent performance on stage fifteen’s ascent of the Alto de l’Angliru to leap-frog Team Sky’s Bradley Wiggins in the General Classification.

THE SECOND OF the Vuelta’s consecutive summit finishes, the infamous Alto de l’Angliru, provided probably the most significant moment of the race so far during today’s fifteenth stage of the Vuelta a Espana.

A group of favourites that included race leader Bradley Wiggins, his teammate Chris Froome, the Geox duo of Juan Jose Cobo and Denis Menchov, Vincenzo Nibali, Rabobank’s Bauke Mollema and Vacansoleils’s Wouter Pouls began the ascent as a unit, but the group quickly fragmented under the unrelenting pressure of the gradient.

Sensing a weakness in Wiggins’ resolve, Cobo launched an attack with six kilometres to go. The Sky rider attempted to take the Spaniard’s wheel, but could only match his pace for a few seconds before falling back to the side of teammate, Chris Froome.

Cobo eventually crossed the line in a time of 4:01:56, a full 48 seconds ahead of Poels, Menchov and Froome, and 1:21 ahead of Wiggins. Having begun the day in fourth place, 55 seconds down on the Englishman, the Geox anchor will find himself in the red jersey for stage 16.

While Dan Martin, who managed to match the pace of the leaders well into the final climb, finished the stage in eleventh place, 1:41 down on Cobo, Nicolas Roche‘s dream of successive top-ten General Classification finishes in the Vuelta appears to have come to an end. The AG2R principal finished the stage in 33rd position, a full 6:19 adrift of Cobo’s time. He now finds himself in 20th place in the GC rankings, four spots lower than Martin.

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