La Vuelta a España: Astana's Lutsenko shines in 5th stage

19:49, 24 August 2017

ALCOSSEBRE. KAZINFORM Kazakh rider Alexey Lutsenko sparkled on the summit finish to win Wednesday's fifth stage of the Vuelta a España cycling race, while Britain's Chris Froome reinforced his status as the overall leader, EFE reports.

The 24-year-old Lutsenko (Astana) earned his first Grand Tour stage win with a time of 4:24.58, 42 seconds ahead of Merhawi Kudus (Dimension Data).

The U-23 world champion in 2012 was simply too good for his rivals at the finish.

Although Froome (Team Sky) was 4.58 minutes off the pace, he strengthened his lead in the general classification to 10 seconds over American Tejay Van Garderen (BMC) and 11 seconds over Esteban Chaves (Orica).

Four-time Tour de France champion Froome said he was satisfied with what he accomplished in the light of what happened during the stage.

"If I had known at the beginning of the stage that this would have been the situation at the finish, I definitely would have signed to agree for that," Froome said.

"Looking at the time gaps now, the GC is definitely taking more shape and it was only a 3km climb. I think I can definitely be happy with that and with the job my teammates did to set that up," the 32-year-old Froome added.

"I learned a lot about my rivals. Esteban Chaves seems to be one of the strongest climbers. Obviously, Alberto Contador did a good ride today. Tejay Van Garderen is still in the mix. Nicolas Roche is also up there so BMC has a couple options to play," he said.

The 175.7-kilometer stage included five climbs.

"I was surprised to see Vincenzo Nibali and Fabio Aru lose a bit of time and Romain Bardet. But it's a long race and I imagine it will be a different race once we get in the high mountains," Froome said.

Lutsenko joined on the breakaway by Marco Haller, built up a six-minute advantage over the rest of the racers heading to the last climb.

Aware of his big achievement given the difficulty of the last climb, Lutsenko said he was so happy with the win.

"This final climb was very hard. I attacked before," Lutsenko said. "I rode mostly by myself. A Katusha rider (Marco Haller) helped me a little bit".

"There was a headwind. I'm very happy. It's been a nice stage. La Vuelta is great. I first took part in 2014 and I came second in a stage. This is the most beautiful win of my career so far," he added.

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