Ukrainian takes fourth in Vuelta stage three after refusing to work in the chase of Pablo Lastras
Ruslan Pidgornyy (Vacansoleil-DCM) took the biggest result so far of his first season with the Dutch ProTeam with fourth place in the third stage of the Vuelta a España between Petrer and Totana. It could have been better for the Ukrainian though, but he refused – along with RadioShack’s Markel Irizar – to help Sylvain Chavanel (Quick Step) chase down eventual stage winner Pablo Lastras (Movistar) in the run to the finish. Chavanel would almost certainly have taken the red jersey, had the chasers caught Lastras, but the Spanish rider took it instead.
“It wasn’t easy to be in the break today, because the start was uphill,” Pidgornyy explained after the stage. “In the final kilometres I thought that we would catch Pablo Lastras. I decided to save my legs; I think it was the best I could do.
“I didn’t make any mistakes,” he added, “but unfortunately it didn’t work out.”
Pidgornyy was the last man standing in a similar five-man breakaway group in the fifth stage of the Tour of Poland earlier this month. He failed to win that day too, but was rewarded for his efforts with the mountains jersey for a day.
It was because he was denied a similar reward this time, when Chavanel outsprinted him to take second place on the second climb of the stage – the Alto de la Santa – that he decided not to help the French champion in his chase. Instead of taking the outright lead in the competition with four points, Pidgornyy joins a long list of riders on three. Lastras leads the standings but, because he has the race lead, Irizar will wear the jersey.
“Because of Sylvain Chavanel I won’t start in the mountain jersey tomorrow,” he said, “so why should I help him to take the lead?”
As well as taking fourth in the stage, Pidgornyy is now also fourth in the overall classification. With the fourth stage finishing at the top of the 2112 metre Sierra Nevada though, this is probably as close as he will get to the red jersey; for the time being at least.
“For the general classification we’ll see what happens,” he said. “I think that a group of maybe ten riders will take over the classification on the final climb. After today I can hardly imagine that I will be in that group again.”