Valverde wins stage 2
The 163.5-kilometre stage from Marbella to Caminito del Rey finished with a proper climb, and it was Team Sky who led the train to the first of nine summit finishes in this year’s Vuelta. The British team set a blistering pace, dropping the likes of Richie Porte and Vincenzo Nibali along the way. Kwiatkowski was in prime position to win the stage, but Valverde flew by him in the last second.
Laurens De Plus finished third, and a small group with Simon Yates and Aru in the middle finished 8 seconds later. Nibali crossed the line 4:04 down, and Richie Porte alongside with Dennis and Adam Yates lost a whopping 13:31.
“I’m delighted. In the Tour, I didn’t get all the good sensations I was looking for. And now I feel like I have the condition I was looking for. It had been some time since I had won a stage at La Vuelta and I wanted to get one, so I’m very happy. De Plus went very hard. I calculated the distance and went with 550-600m to go. When we got back to De Plus, I let Kwiatkowski move ahead, and I overcame him in the last curve. So far, I’ve achieved the goal of winning a stage and we’ll see how things go day by day,” Valverde said after the finish.
General classification after stage two
1 Michal Kwiatkowski (Team Sky) in 4:22:40
2 Alejandro Valverde (Movistar Tea) + 14s
3 Wilco Kelderman (Team Sunweb) + 25s
4 Laurens De Plus (Quick-Step Floors) + 28s
5 Jon Izagirre (Bahrain-Merida) + 30s
6 Fabio Felline (Trek-Segafredo) + 30s
7 Emanuel Buchmann (Bora-Hansgrohe) + 32s
8 Tony Gallopin (AG2R La Mondiale) + 33s
9 Nairo Quintana (Movistar Team) + 33s
10 Bauke Mollema (Trek-Segafredo) + 35s
