It wasn’t the Tourmalet, but there was still some action on Sunday in the Vuelta. In the final climb of Aramón Formigal, which was done in the rain and in the fog, the GC contenders offered a great fight, which David Gaudu fully took part in. With a shape growing every day, the young Frenchman even attacked with his teammates Bruno Armirail in the last kilometers. He finally took eleventh, behind several breakaway riders, but ahead of many favorites. On the eve of the first rest day, he sits 16th overall.
“There were just 15 guys, and I was very happy to be there”, Bruno Armirail
The first week of the Vuelta ended on Sunday as it started on Tuesday: with a mountain top finish. However, while it was an explosive climb in Arrate on day one, it was more of a long, steady ascent to conclude stage 6. As the day before, a – big – breakaway got the opportunity to go for victory in the Aramón Formigal’s climb. Still, they made the bunch ride all day due to the presence in front of Gorka Izagirre, well placed overall. It was another Izagirre however, namely Ion, who grabbed the win at the top. A few tens of minutes earlier, the peloton tackled this very climb being quite shattered. “It was pretty tough all day, especially with a lot of rain,” said Bruno Armirail. It went fast on the last descent. We knew we had to be in good position in case of splits, and we did. We did a good descent alongside David”. “I was still well surrounded by the team throughout the stage,” said the latter. “There were tough weather conditions, but it did not bother me at all on paper. Overall it was a tough and fast day.”
Only 130 kilometers were to be covered before the final climb, but they were so at the very high pace, despite two other previous climbs. When the last climb finally came, David Gaudu still had Matthieu Ladagnous, Olivier Le Gac, Romain Seigle and Bruno Armirail to protect him. “Roglic was caught in a split”, the latter recalled. “Movistar started riding and we let them do it at first”. The peloton therefore gradually reduced until it got really small with less than ten kilometers from the finish. “I had really good feelings in the final climb,” David added. “I saw that Bruno was still with me and that we could try something on a section he would like”. After a fairly demanding first part of the climb, the road got quite flat for a good two kilometers. “There were just 15 guys in the red jersey group,” Bruno explained. “I was glad to be there at that point. The purpose of the day for me was precisely to stay with David. In the end, the legs weren’t too bad. David told me to speed up. He saw that we had made a little gap and told me to continue. That’s what we did to take a bit of time on the other leaders. It was a good stage for me”.
“It’s a good sign for the rest of the race”, David Gaudu
From the seven-kilometer banner up to 3,500 meters from the line, Bruno Armirail therefore pulled for his leader. Richard Carapaz, Hugh Carthy and Marc Soler eventually closed the gap on Gaud, but not Primoz Roglic who suffered today. “As I’m still a bit far away in the overall, they let me go at first and I eventually finished eleventh with Carapaz,” explained David. “So it’s a pretty good day, and it’s a good sign for the rest of the race. We have to stay focused. La Vuelta has only just begun. On the first real mountain top finish, we have already seen some gaps”. Thanks to these gaps, David Gaudu actually moved up to sixteenth overall on Sunday. “It was an extremely tough day due to the weather conditions, and we saw that it had an impact for some in the final,” said Thierry Bricaud. “For us it’s a positive day, the team remained together and focused around David. Bruno did a great job to finish it off and David managed to stay in touch with the best. It was very good”. “We are going to take advantage of the rest day to recover, recharge the batteries and then we will set off again for new adventures”, David concluded with a smile.
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