Cycling: The 11th stage of the day was called the king's stage. With 5.000 meters of altitude difference over 130 km, it was actually quite brutal. Today, 184 km with a total of 7 climbs had to be mastered. And the quite surprising and gratifying winner in the end was Frank Schleck.
With a clear lead over the group of the overall leaders, the Luxembourger won in front of his stubborn escape companion, the Colombian Rodolpho Torres. Schleck hasn't won an international race at the Criterium International since 2011 - it's nice that four years of dry spells are over for him.
Ten minutes later, the fight for the overall lead remained extremely exciting. Fabio Aru and his team were able to control all attacks until shortly before the end of the sometimes extremely steep final climb, but had to be surprised by an attack by Joaquim Rodriguez a good 1.000 meters from the finish. "Purito" was only a second behind the previous leader Fabio Aru before the stage - it was clear that an attack "had to" come. It took a while, but Aru fought back. He showed great morale and was only beaten by two seconds. Enough for Rodriguez to take over red; but with a lead of just one second, it is anything but a reassuring lead. Both Aru and the strong time trialist Tom Dumoulin have all options and the outcome of an exciting Vuelta seems completely open.
Final result stage 16 Vuelta a España 2015
[easy table th=“0″]
1st, Frank Schleck, Trek Factory Racing, 05:49:56
2.,Rodolfo Torres,Colombia,00:01:10
3.,Moreno Moser,Cannondale-Garmin,00:01:48
4.,George Bennet,LottoNL-Jumbo,00:02:42
5th, Pierre Rolland, Team Europcar, 00:02:49
6th,Omar Fraile,Caja Rural Seguro RGA,00:03:05
7. Carlos Verona Quintanilla Etixx Quick Step 00:04:26
8.,Lawrence Warbasse,IAM Cycling,00:06:02
9.,Joaquím Rodriguez,Katusha,00:08:51
10.,Fabio Aru,Team Astana,00:08:53
[/easy table]