Primoz edges closer to Vuelta win as Higuita earns 1st victory

Van der Poel reclaims Tour of Britain lead

BECERRIL DE LA SIERRA, Spain, Sept 12, (RTRS): Colombian Sergio Higuita earned his first professional victory by winning stage 18 in the Vuelta a Espana on Thursday as Slovenia’s Primoz Roglic closed in on the title by increasing his overall advantage to two minutes and 50 seconds.

Higuita, 22, formed part of an early breakaway group of six riders but used his skills as a time trialist to surge off on his own on a descent with 46km to go of the 177.5km mountain ride from Colmenar Viejo Quintana, who suffered in the mountains after his superb performance the previous day on the flat stage.

Quintana’s exploits on Wednesday’s wind-hit stage had trimmed the gap behind Roglic to two minutes and 25 seconds and given him a fighting chance of a repeat of his 2016 victory but those hopes are fading fast.

The Colombian failed to keep up with the overall contenders and finished eighth in the stage, one minute one second behind Roglic and Valverde.

Quintana is now three minutes 31 seconds adrift of the Slovenian and 41 seconds behind Valverde with effectively only two stages left to make a difference.

Roglic will expect to maintain his gap over Valverde in Friday’s flat 165.2km stage from Avila to Toledo, with only one mountain stage remaining on Saturday before Sunday’s procession

Roglic

to Madrid.

Meanwhile, Dutchman Mathieu van der Poel reclaimed the lead at the Tour of Britain during Thursday’s sixth stage in Worcestershire after finishing sixth in the individual time trial.

Van der Poel, who lost the lead on Wednesday, is now six seconds ahead of Italian Matteo Trentin (Mitchelton-Scott) in the general classification.

The Corendon-Circus cyclist finished 12 seconds behind stage winner Edoardo Affini of Italy, also with Mitchelton-Scott, who finished the 14.4 km stage in a time of 16 minutes, 39 seconds.

“It’s a really close battle with Matteo and I think it’s going to be a proper fight,” Van der Poel told ITV Sport. “It was a long time ago when I did a time trial. I’m happy with the result.”

Team INEOS’ Pavel Sivakov is third in the overall standings, 24 seconds behind Van der Poel.

The penultimate stage on Thursday is a 188.7 km run that starts in Warwick and finishes in Burton Dassett Country Park.