Spaniard Juan Jose Cobo remained on course for overall victory in the Vuelta a Espana, when he held his lead over Britain’s Chris Froome after Saturday’s 20th and penultimate stage.
Italian sprint specialist Daniele Bennati of Leopard Trek team won the stage, a 185km ride from Bilbao to Vitoria in the Basque Country, ahead of compatriots Enrico Gasparotto and Damiano Caruso.
Cobo and Froome finished with the pack in the same time as Bennati after the stage, which included four mountain passes, but which ended with a relatively flat stretch of about 45km that favored a sprint finish.
Photo: Reuters
The Kenyan-born Briton of Team Sky trailed Cobo by 13 seconds, ahead of the final stage that ended in Madrid yesterday.
Given the unwritten rule in the Grand Tours that no one attacks the race leader in the last stage, it would be difficult for Froome to overhaul the Geox rider.
But bonus seconds were up for grabs yesterday and Cobo was leaving nothing to chance.
“Mathematically, it’s not over,” said Cobo, who has yet to win any of the three major Tours. “Myself and my team will be concentrating all the way to Madrid.”
Froome did his best to cut the deficit by picking up bonus seconds in the intermediate sprints, but to no avail, as the race leader followed him like a shadow.
The stage was otherwise marked by several breakaways, notably by Carlos Barredo of Rabobank, who led over the first category Urkiola climb.
The 2008 Tour de France winner Carlos Sastre of Spain attacked near the finish, demonstrating his Geox team’s alertness to the threat of Team Sky.
The final stage would take the riders 95.6km over a relatively flat course from the Circuito del Jarama to Madrid.
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