Stage 6 | Villareal / Sagunt | Vuelta a España 2017

The hills of Valencia made for open, aggressive racing both in the pursuit of the stage win and the race for the leader’s red jersey.

In this episode of The Cycling Podcast, Richard Moore, Lionel Birnie, Daniel Friebe and Fran Reyes discuss the sixth stage from Villareal to Sagunt, which saw a Polish one-two at the finish.

The honours went to Lotto-Soudal’s Tomas Marczynski, an old training partner of Fran’s, with Pawel Poljanski second. But behind them, Alberto Contador continued to look good after his blip at Andorra, putting pressure on the overall favourites and for a time dragging a small group clear with Chris Froome paying close attention.

However, Contador was left frustrated because the rest of the overall contenders caught up on the descent – all apart from BMC Racing’s Tejay Van Garderen who crashed and then fell again on a roundabout as he battled to limit his losses at the finish.

The Cycling Podcast is supported by Rapha and Science in Sport.