CYCLING – Team Bahrain Victorious’ Colombian star Santiago Buitrago extended his lead in the King of the Mountains (KOM) ranking yesterday following the 11th stage of the 81st La Vuelta a Espana – the third and final grand tour of the international cycling season.
Buitrago’s Slovenian teammate Matevz Govekar was the best finisher for the kingdom’s squad in the 153.8-kilometre leg, taking a place in the top 10 in ninth and joining a bunch sprint to the finish, led by stage winner Matthew Brennan of Team Visma-Lease a Bike, who won in three hours 17 minutes and 18 seconds.
Dutchman Mathijs Paasschens followed in 46th, while Jakob Omrzel, also from Slovenia, came home in 59th and Buitrago was 65th.
Spaniards Pello Bilbao and Pau Miquel were 89th and 93rd, respectively, while rounding out Bahrain Victorious’ finishers yesterday was Hungarian Attila Valter in 113th and Slovenian Roman Ermakov in 128th.
Buitrago earned two more points to improve to 31 on the KOM standings, where he now holds a seven-point lead from Enric Mas of Movistar team.
He successfully defended the race’s blue-and-white polkadot jersey for the second day in a row.
Omrzel remained as Bahrain Victorious’ best rider in the general classification in 10th, where he is eight minutes behind overall race leader Mas.
Omrzel is also second in the best young rider ranking, just under six minutes behind Oscar Onley of Netcompany Ineos.
This year’s 21-stage Vuelta a Espana continues today with stage 12 covering 166.6km, part of the elite men’s road race’s total distance of 3,296.6km.
La Vuelta a Espana follows the other two grand tours of the season, which were the Giro d’Italia in May and the Tour de France last month.