A five-man move was established after nearly 60 kilometres of the 215km stage, the longest of the 2015 race, with France’s Mikael Chérel, Spain’s José Joaquín Rojas, Colombia’s Carlos Quintero and the Italian duo Salvatore Puccio and De Marchi.

While Astana were not prepared to let the breakaway’s advantage grow too much as they approached the third category climb, Puerto de Estacas de Trueba at 97km to the finish, in order to protect the lead of their Italian rider Fabio Aru, they allowed the gap to increase after the ascent.

With the leaders having nearly a 10 minute advantage when they reached the 130km mark, it was clear that the winner was going to come from the group, but their breakaway companions continued to work together until the final kilometres of the stage.

At seven kilometres to the finish, Chérel launched the first attack as they began to climb towards the ski resort of Alto Campo, but it proved to be unsuccessful as he was quickly caught.

It was then the turn of Puccio to make his bid for victory, however he was caught and passed by his fellow Italian De Marchi in the final two kilometres with the BMC rider then riding away to the finish in 5 hours 43min 12sec.

In the battle for the overall victory, Aru utilised his Astana team mates before attacking inside the final five kilometres, but he was unable make significant time gains on his main rivals after crossing 3:39 behind the stage winner.

Aru, who is now 26 seconds ahead of Spain’s Joaquim Rodriquez in the overall standings, did manage to extend his advantage over Tom Dumoulin to 49 seconds after the Dutch rider finished 19 seconds adrift of the Italian.

Stage 15 will provide another opportunity for Aru to extend his lead in the general classification with the peloton having to tackle two mountain passes on the 175.8km route from Comillas to Cabrales.



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