Joaquim Rodriguez Oliver wins the 14th stage of the Vuelta a Espana 2012
The 149.2 kilometre chase to Puerto de Ancares during the stage 14 of the Vuelta served as a perfect battlefield for the two Spaniards fighting for an overall victory at their home Grand Tour.
Both, Alberto Contador and Joaquim Rodriguez showed their terrific form during the event and the two overall contenders of the race managed to occupy the top two spots during the stage as well.
Rodriguez managed to show his competitors that he still has enough legs to bag his third stage victory of the Vuelta a Espana.
Contador fell short of the stage win for the third time but did well to stay close to Rodriguez after the stage 14 classifications.
"I'm not the big favourite. I'm just taking each stage as it comes, but there are still lots of stages and passes before we reach Madrid," Rodriguez shared after the race.
"The standings are still very tight, so I don't feel like I've won anything yet".
"The Polish guy [Majka] set a very hard rhythm and I said to myself, ‘If we continue at this pace I'm not going to reach the top’”.
“What happened was that everyone else thought the same and we had to slow down a bit. If we hadn't, I wouldn't have got there".
The 33-year-old is having an outstanding season. He came close to bag the first overall spot at the Giro d’Italia this year but had to settle for the second overall position along with two stage victories and the point’s classifications at the race.
Joaquim finished first at the La Fleche Wallonne, second overall at the Tour of the Basque Country, sixth overall at the Tirreno-Adriatico and occupied the eighth overall position at the Clasica de San Sebastian 2012.
Alessandro Ballan of Team BMC and Alberto Losada Alguacil of Team Katusha succeeded during the first and the second sprints of the Vuelta a Espana stage 14.
Rodriguez now leads the stage 14 classifications with a margin of 22 seconds over Alberto Contador Velasco of Team Saxo Bank-Tinkoff Bank.
Tour de France 2012 runner up, Christopher Froome of Team Sky Procycling is 1 minute and 41 seconds behind at the third position.
Alejandro Valverde Belmonte, Daniel Moreno, Robert Gesink and Nicolas Roche claimed the fourth, fifth, sixth and the seventh positions in the respective order.
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