SPANIARD URKO BERRADE soloed to victory in Thursday’s 18th stage of the Vuelta a Espana in the Basque Country as Australia’s Ben O’Connor held the overall race lead.
Berrade, 26, gave his Kern Pharma team their third stage win of this year’s race, powering over the line in his home region four seconds ahead of Swiss Mauro Schmid. Another Kern Pharma rider Pau Miquel crossed the line in third.
O’Connor, riding for the Decathlon-AG2R La Mondiale team, held his five-second advantage on Slovenian three-time champion Primoz Roglic after the medium mountain stage over 179.5km from Vitoria-Gasteiz to Maeztu.
Cork’s Eddie Dunbar finished in the red jersey group in 39th place, moving up to 13th in the general classification with three stages remaining, while Tyrone’s Darren Rafferty finished nearly 20 minutes adrift of Berrade.
Friday’s 19th stage arrives at the summit of Alto De Moncalvillo in La Rioja region, with another decisive mountain top finish on Saturday before the final time trial in Madrid on Sunday.
The top 10 for Eddie is unrealistic as Landa is 10th almost 7 mins ahead. A medium mountain tomorrow and a beast of a mountain stage on Saturday it’s likely the top 15 will mostly remain as is.. Eddie could catch Kuss in 12th or Yates in 11th who are almost 3 and 4 mins ahead respectively if either were to blow up or others were to drop out. Although saying that I don’t know the time trialing capabilities of most riders around him so placings could change slightly on Sunday but more from 10th up as the time gaps are closer from there. But a brilliant tour for Eddie, delighted for him. A grand tour stage winner and belief he can hang with the best climbers out there. He’ll probably go and win tomorrow from a break and make me look silly after saying this which I’d be be very happy about :)