Valverde stage win cuts into Molard’s Vuelta lead

ALEJANDRO Valverde beat Peter Sagan in an uphill sprint to claim his second win of the Spanish Vuelta yesterday.

Valverde, who is second overall, closed to within 37 seconds of leader Rudy Molard thanks to the 10-second bonus he was awarded for claiming Stage 8. Valverde has won 11 stages at his home race after also winning Stage 2.

The 38-year-old Movistar rider surged past Sagan over the final short climb to finish the mostly flat 195km ride from Linares to Almaden in 4½ hours.

“[I’m] older in years, yes, but not in my physical or mental fitness,” Valverde said. “My goal was not to lose time today, but I got on his wheel and was able to overtake him.”

Molard of FDJ kept the overall lead for a fourth consecutive day.

Tiago Machado, Jorge Cubero and Hector Saez got out on a breakaway and led by 12 minutes before being reeled in with 6km remaining.

The mostly uneventful “transition” stage through dry fields dotted with olive trees moved the race towards the mountains of the north in the final two weeks.

After easily holding his lead on the flats of Spain’s southern region, Molard was expected to have more difficulty when the race faced its first serious mountain test overnight.

Among the title favourites, Simon Yates is fourth at 51 seconds back, Michal Kwiatkowski is sixth at 1:06 behind, and Nairo Quintana is eighth at 1:14 behind.

Stage nine was a 201km leg starting in Talavera that crested three categorised climbs.