Vuelta a San Juan (st. 5)

Movistar Team duo take 6th and 9th at San Juan's wind-hit Queen stage; Dayer now eighth overall.

Gonzalo Najar (SEP) offered an exhibition to win on day five of the Vuelta a San Juan, the Queen stage of the 2018 event, finishing atop the 2,600m Alto Colorado. After jumping away from the field together with team-mate José Rodríguez, the Argentinian national champion increased his gap against the main GC contenders to reach the top with two minutes of advantage over Óscar Sevilla (MED) and Rodolfo Torres (ANS), the top finishers of a group where the Movistar Team fought hard to remain in.

Absent into the main group at the bottom of the climb because of another series of crosswinds, which caught the Blues out of good position, Winner Anacona (17th), Eduardo Sepúlveda and Dayer Quintana courageously made it back and completed – especially the latter two – a more-than-decent ascent. The Argentinian finished in 6th spot, just ahead of former race leader Filippo Ganna (UAD), while Dayer took a fine 9th place to get within the top ten overall (8th, +3’09” on Najar).

The Vuelta a San Juan thus sees its overall classification effectively decided, since the two remaining stages this weekend -Saturday’s loop around the Estadio Aldo Cantoni and Sunday’s circuit race over the ITT course from Tuesday- are both mainly flat.

Picture (c): BettiniPhoto.net