Alessandro De Marchi (BMC) took a brilliant win to perk up his team after news of Sammy Sanchez’s abandonment. In the GC Quintana came out on top but the time gaps were limited on the long shallow finishing climb.The mountain stage began with a 5 man break, De Marchi, Carlos Quintero, Mikael Cherel, Salvatore Puccio and JJ Rojas going clear. Their lead was initially kept under 6 minutes but as they hit the second climb of the day the break were content to let them go and it soon extended to over 10 minutes. On the final climb there was a stalemate in both groups until the final 5km. Cherel tried time and again to get away, but de Marchi’s legs and ambitions shut him down each time. Rojas and Puccio were the next attackers, they were slowly brought back single-handedly by De Marchi who then jumped past and took a brilliant stage win.Aru was the first rider to attack from the GC group but Quintana was able to go with him and later put time into the young Italian. Tom Dumoulin was another loser on the day but he still stays within a minute of the red jersey. He needs to stop the slide on the next two days if he is going to take back the jersey on the time trial stage.RouteAfter two lumpy transitional days we’re back in the high mountains. We have a 215km stage from Vitoria-Gasteiz, the capital of the Basque region to the hors...
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