Ben O’Connor adds to Vuelta lead in brutal queen stage

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Ben O’Connor adds to Vuelta lead in brutal queen stage

Ben O’Connor has defied the odds to increase his lead at the end of the first week of the Vuelta a Espana and remain in pole position to become only Australia’s third cycling Grand Tour winner.

The man from Perth had looked vulnerable to losing a chunk of time to his nearest pursuer Primoz Roglic in the Sierra Nevada mountains on Sunday after squandering nearly a minute of his lead behind the victorious Slovenian in Saturday’s less demanding stage.

Yet on a day when Britain’s Adam Yates produced the same sort of race-altering solo win that O’Connor had delivered on stage six, the courageous *********** actually turned the tables on three-time champ Roglic at the end of the ninth ‘queen’ stage from Motril to Granada.

While Team UAE Emirates ace Yates went it alone to win the stage by one minute 39 seconds from Richard Carapaz, O’Connor showed huge determination to take the group sprint finish for third, 3:45 behind the winner, picking up four bonus points in the process ahead of eighth-placed Roglic.

It meant the Decathlon AG2R La Mondiale team leader actually increased his overall advantage in the GC standings to 3:53 going into Monday’s most welcome rest day.

Yates had made his extraordinary break 58 kilometres from home, and was rewarded for his maiden Vuelta triumph by moving to seventh in the standings, 5:30 behind O’Connor.

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