(Reuters) - Chris Froome rebounded superbly to increase his overall lead in the Vuelta a Espana to one minute 37 seconds with a lightning late attack which left nearest challenger Vincenzo Nibali in his wake on Thursday's 18th stage. Belgian Sander Armee won his first grand tour stage by 31 seconds with a late attack from the breakaway group, dropping Alexey Lutsenko in the final 600 metres. Fabio Aru finished the strongest of the general classification group, nine minutes and 56 seconds behind Armee. At one point he had more than a minute on Froome, but the Briton launched a late attack along with Spaniard Alberto Contador and Canadian Michael Woods to trim the gap to the Italian to 12 seconds. Nibali could not keep up with the group as they approached the summit finish in Santo Toribio de Liebana, and lost 21 seconds to Froome, a day after cutting the Briton's overall lead to 1:16 in the Los Machucos mountains.

Source: The Star September 07, 2017 17:03 UTC