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2015 Vuelta a España Stage 7: Lindeman wins atop La Alpujarra, Aru pounces, Chaves still leads

LottoNL-Jumbo’s Bert-jan Lindeman took the biggest win of his career at the top of Friday’s 2015 Vuelta a España’s first Cat. 1 summit finish. Dutchman Lindeman, a serial fugitive in this year’s Spanish Grand Tour, beat his breakmates to the line. Fabio Aru (Italy/Astana) attacked out of a favourites group and gained time on his rivals but Chris Froome (Great Britain/Sky) dropped several seconds. Race leader Esteban Chaves (Colombia/Orica-GreenEdge) finished with the favourites group and keeps the race lead.

The riders hardly saw a level kilometre on the course as the roads rippled continuously, but there was only a Cat. 3 at the 87-km mark before the summit finish on the Sierra Nevada’s Cat. 1 Alto de Capileira in La Alpujarra. The 18.7-km ascent was taken in two steps, averaged 5% with the flat part, and had a maximum grade of 14%.

Five riders got away early and rolled up a lead of over 10:30 by the foot of the 9-km Puerto de Blancares ascent. Fugitive Amets Txurruka (Spain/Caja Rural) was first over the climb, while his 2016 team Orica-GreenEdge led the peloton.

The trend in the altimetry was downward until the foot of the Alto de Capileira. Temperatures of 35-degrees Celcius perhaps gave the break a longer leash, and the gap rose to 13:00 with 81-km remaining.

Sky, then Movistar and then finally Katusha mobbed the front of the main group but only whittled the gap down to 6:00 by the beginning of the Cat. 1 clamber. Movistar drove the fragmenting peloton, hoping to keep the pace high enough to discourage attacks until the 14% section with 2-km to go.

The escape stayed intact and hit the flat section with 10.5-km remaining with 3:30 of its gap left. Meanwhile, the red jersey group, with Movistar and Astana wielding the whip, was climbing at speeds up to 32-km/h!

Europcar escapee Jérome Cousin’s attacks spat a rider out the back of the leading group and ignited Lampre’s Belarusian Ilia Koshevoy, who left the others behind. The gap stood at 2:20 with 4-km and the steepest grades remaining. First Cousin and then Lindeman caught up and then misfortune crushed Cousin’s dream. Cousin bolted at the 2-km line and the other two brought him back. Off camera, with 600-metres remaining, Koshevoy ran into Cousin and the Frenchman came stumbling off his machine.

Back in the favourites group Froome popped and Aru attacked to gap the others and finish third. On his third breakaway in a week Lindeman attacked Koshevoy with 200-metres to line and won a famous victory. Aru moves up to 8th on GC, tied with Nairo Quintana (Colombia/Movistar) 57-seconds behind Chaves.

Saturday’s 182.5-kms have a downhill tendency before two circuits around Murcia each with a Cat. 3 ascent.

2015 Vuelta a España Stage 7
1) Bert-jan Lindeman (The Netherlands/LottoNL-Jumbo) 5:10:24
2) Ilia Koshevoy Belarus/Lampre) +0:09
3) Fabio Aru (Italy/Astana) +0:29
150) Dominique Rollin (Canada/Cofidis) +23:05
157) Antoine Duchesne (Canada/Europcar) s.t.

2015 Vuelta a España GC
1) Esteban Chaves (Colombia/Orica-GreenEdge) 27:06:13
2) Tom Dumoulin (The Netherlands/Giant-Alpecin) +0:10
3) Dan Martin (Ireland/Cannondale-Garmin) +0:33
161) Dominique Rollin (Canada/Cofidis) +1:02:00
167) Antoine Duchesne (Canada/Europcar) +1:03:44

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