Vuelta a San Juan (st. 6)

Colombian from Movistar Team remains perfectly covered by his five team-mates after four-man break puts his lead into jeopardy, sits now just 24 hours from claiming his first pro stagerace success.

The rain and the breakaways were the main challenges Winner Anacona (Movistar Team) had to face in the first of two key stages for a possible overall success in the 2019 Vuelta a San Juan, today over 153km on its fast-paced stage six, in and around the Autódromo El Villicum.

A dangerous four-man move -including Daniel Zamora (AVF) as top GC contender, barely 2′ behind Winner in the standings- forced Eduardo Sepúlveda, Jorge Arcas and Carlos Barbero to work hard to keep their disetance as close as the sprinters’ team needed before their gallop started in the last 50km. The effort was fruitless, though, as three of the escapees survived, with Nicolás Tivani (AVF) taking the win with a dozen seconds over the bunch.

The GC stayed with no major changes, as second-placed Julian Alaphilippe (DQT) took barely six seconds over Anacona at the reduced field’s sprint to sit now 35″ in arrears before Sunday’s circuit around the capital city of San Juan –Carapaz and Quintana are still 6th and 8th in the GC-. Only one last effort remains before the Movistar Team confirms its maiden stagerace win of 2019.

REACTION / Winner Anacona (video, in Spanish):

“We knew it was going to be a very difficult day, with strong winds and rain – actually, it seemed like a harder stage for me than yesterday’s. It was a fast-paced one, and a very tense day. Many teams had plans to try and open gaps into the crosswinds, yet our team stayed composed and well together pretty much all day, trying to stay near the front. I was lucky and confident to have the guys by my side. Everything turned out well today, but there’s another tough stage ahead tomorrow – we’ll do our very best to try and defend this jersey.”