2018 Vuelta a España Stage 15 Results & Recap
Stage 15 of the 2018 Vuelta a España is in the books. The final results and standings are below, followed by our recap of how the race unfolded.
Race Recap
Pinot wins stage 15
Thibaut Pinot (Groupama-FDJ) claimed a solo victory on stage 15 of the Vuelta a Espana, attacking with six kilometres left in the stage and holding of Miguel Angel Lopez (Astana) on the final climb to Lagos de Covadonga after 178km of racing.
“It’s what I had planned: enjoy the moment the favorites would look at each other,” Pinot said. “I was down 1’45’’ on GC so I knew I wasn’t an immediate threat and they wouldn’t go for me if I attacked. And once I had a 15’’ gap, with the condition I have now I knew I could make it. This victory means a lot of things. I went for this victory, it feels really good. I was obsessed with winning on all three Grand Tours and I’ve just done it. This victory will be important in my career. There’s still a hard week ahead. Tomorrow is the rest day so I’ll enjoy tonight. I feel good, I’ll fight until Madrid without setting myself any limits.”
Simon Yates (Mitchelton-Scott) took third on the day, retaining his red jersey and further distancing himself by a few seconds from Valverde and Quintana in the overall competiton.
It was a very strong attack from Pinot,” Yates said. “He came from behind with a lot of power, a lot of speed. I can only congratulate him, it was a great move. It was difficult in the last climb. There was zero cooperation (with Quintana and Lopez) so it was difficult to do anything. There was a little bit of headwind as well so if you opened a gap it was hard to maintain. So nothing really happened in the end. I feel good and if I can hold the same form and the same legs I’ll be very happy. I’m looking forward to the rest day and then we’ll move on to the time-trial and the rest of it. The gaps are still very small and the TT could be the key.”\nThe breakaway finally broke away with 35 kilometres ridden: Ivan Garcia Cortina (Bahrain-Merida), Nicolas Roche (BMC Racing Team), Imanol Erviti (Movistar), Ben King (Dimension Data), Pierre Rolland (Education First-Drapac), George Bennett, Danny Van Poppel (LottoNL-Jumbo), Tao Geoghegan Hart (Team Sky), Bauke Mollema, Fabio Felline (Trek-Segafredo), Valerio Conti (UAE Team Emirates) and Nick Schultz (Caja Rural-Seguros RGA).
They slowly worked up a gap of about 3 minutes when Garcia went solo with 20 kilometres to go. He was caught with eight to go. Pinot took advantage of the GC contenders marking each other, jumped ahead and held off Lopez by almost 30 seconds at the finish.
Get our full coverage of the Vuelta a España and every race we cover with our mobile app! The apps have over 100 additional exclusive features, including our award-winning Time Machine feature that lets you pause/rewind/replay the entire app to sync with delayed race video, integrated Fantasy Cycling, push notifications, an integrated news feed, live GPS tracking, world-class commentary, and our animated interactive maps and profiles.
