Froome extends Vuelta lead, Armee wins 18th stage

SANTO TORIBIO DE LIEBANA, Spain: Chris Froome extended his Vuelta a Espana lead over Vincenzo Nibali to 1min 37sec on Thursday as Belgium’s Sander Armee claimed the 18th stage.

Armee edged out Alexey Lutsenko and Giovanni Visconti in a time of 4hr 09min 39sec for the 169km ride from Suances to Santo Toribio de Liebana as the general classification favourites allowed an early 20- strong breakaway group to fight for the stage win.

“Today in the breakaway with 20 guys we had a big gap and I knew I was one of the 20 guys who could win the stage,” said Armee.

“Everything has to come together and I managed to win because I had a real ly good last 15km. I was really strong there.”

Over 10 minutes back on Armee, Froome staved off a series of attacks in the chasing group with the help of his Sky teammates before accelerating himself in the final 600m to leave Nibali trailing.

The Briton picked up 21 seconds on the Italian to stretch his overall lead with just two competitive days of racing to go before Sunday’s parade around central Madrid.

Froome is now a huge favourite to become just the third rider ever to win the Tour de France and Vuelta in the same year, and the first since the Vuelta was moved to after the Tour in the cycling calendar back in 1995.

“As s o on a s I m ad e an acceleration on the last climb, Wout Poels was straight on the radio saying ‘ Nibali is dropped, keep going’, and I think that was exactly the result we were looking for today,” said Froome. — AFP