Today's stage: 163 km stage with a pair of category 3 climbs, one just 14 km from the finish
Who won today's stage? Pablo Lastras (Movistar) attacked his companions in the daily breakaway just before the final climb and took the stage as those companions weren't able to work together in the final 5km. The break stayed away because the peloton other than Leopard-Trek pretty much refused to work with a big mountain stage coming up tomorrow.
What matters in the GC race? Leopard-Trek had four of the top five riders in the GC entering the day, but race leader Danielle Bennati was dropped on the final climb and the breakaway riders jumped past the others. Lastras is the overall leader by 20 seconds over Sylvain Chavanel (QuickStep).
What matters in the other competitions?
Green Jersey (Points, Sprinter Competition) – Stage winner Lastras assumed the lead in this classification as well, but he holds the leaders red jersey so second place Chavanel will wear the green tomorrow instead of his French national champion jersey.
Polka Dot Jersey (King of the Mountains) – Lastras, Chavanel, today's leader Paul Martens (Rabobank), Markel Irizar (Radio Shack) and Ruslan Pydgornyy (Vacansoleil) are all tied for the lead. I believe Irizar will be wearing the jersey tomorrow, but it could be anyone other than Lastras or Chavanel who will be wearing other, bigger jerseys.
White Jersey (Allround) – To be listed in the qualification from this point forward, a rider must have scored points in both the Green and Polka Dot Jersey competitions. Lastras is the leader followed by Chavanel, Irizar, Pydgornyy and Martens.
Biggest surprise: The peloton didn't reel the break back in. At one point, the lead was over 8 minutes, then when television coverage started the lead was 6 minutes. It came down steadily after that, but slowly. With 35 km to go, Leopard-Trek pulled off the pacemaking and no other team came to the front, allowing the break to extend its lead by 30 seconds back to 4 minutes. After that, nobody worked really hard until the final climb, giving the stage win to the breakaway. No doubt, the scorching heat up above 100 degrees played a role in the break staying away.
Biggest disappointment: After Lastras attacked, Pydgornyy and Irizar refused to work with Chavanel to chase him down. They were sure they would lose a sprint to Chavanel so they wouldn't work and Chavanel was unable to chase down Lastras on his own (or maybe was unwilling given it could gift the stage win to his non-working companions.
Other items of note: There was a crash today. No abandonments, but Garmin-Cervelo GC contender Christophe Le Mevel was involved... Many of the sprinters lost big time and were nowhere near the front to contest the sprint, even if the breakaway had been reeled in.
What is coming tomorrow? Early mountain carnage. There is a category 1 climb before US tv coverage begins, then a category 3 and finally the monstrous climb up the Sierra Nevada to the first summit finish of this year's Vuelta. Any GC contenders not in good form will be well out of the race if they don't have it tomorrow.
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