Today's stage: Hilly, mountainous something or other with five categorized climbs, but a long flat run in to bring everything back together.
Who won today's stage? Michael Albasini (HTC-High Road) was the strongest rider on the flats at the end, marking every attack and taking a sprint victory over his companions in a 20 man breakaway that survived until the end of the stage.
What matters in the GC race? Vincenzo Nibali (Liquigas-Cannondale) took a page from the Bauke Mollema (Rabobank) playbook from yesterday and got himself an intermediate sprint victory and the six bonus seconds that come with it. Nothing else among the top 6 is changed. By positioning on the road, Daniel Moreno (Katusha) was in the break and passed teammate Joaquim Rodriguez in the overall race. I wonder if he has or will supplant Rodriguez as the GC leader before the end of the race?
What matters in the other competitions?
Green Jersey (Points, Sprinter Competition) – Not much change here at all. Rodriguez still leads, followed by sprinter Peter Sagan (Liquigas-Cannondale) and Mollema
Polka Dot Jersey (King of the Mountains) – David Moncoutie (Cofidis), 3-time defending champion in this classification, was in the breakaway again, as usual. He absorbed quite a few point and took the lead in this race by a fairly large 12 point margin over Matteo Montaguti (Ag2r La Mondiale)
White Jersey (Allround) – By moving up in the GC and taking the second intermediate sprint, Moreno regained the lead in this competition from Mollema and will once again wear the white jersey tomorrow.
Biggest surprise: The GC leaders let a break with the likes of Moreno and Chris Anker Sorenson (Saxo Bank) go in the first place. The presence of top 20 placed riders meant there wasn't a huge leash like there often is on this type of stage and made for a much harder day for the top five guys and their teams. Just not great tactics to let those guys go and made for a much more interesting chase.
Biggest disappointment: This route was unfortunate. Not every mountain stage needs to be a summit finish, but the finish was way too far away from the last mountain to have any effects other than forming a grupetto behind the break and the GC group. What we has was the breakaway, then the GC, then stragglers, then grupetto and no time gaps of note except between the break and the GC guys. A good stage with a boring result.
Other items of note: The break started with 28 riders including four from Euskatel, but 8 including Igor Anton were popped off on one of the climbs... Poor Rodriguez has no way to attack. The entire peloton knows he needs to attack, but his presence in the green jersey is basically a neon green highlighter that says “Look at me, I'm attacking, now come get me” whenever he goes. No way to disguise attacks... Marcel Kittel (Skil-Shimano) did not take the start today and Taylor Phinney (BMC) abandoned during the stage. Both are headed to the World Championships and left to regain energy before the Worlds at the end of the month. There are now 17 riders out of the race.
What is coming tomorrow? A new summit finish. La Farrapona has never been used in the Vuelta before. Before the peloton gets there, there is a category 2 climb and then a category 1 climb. The GC battle really resumes tomorrow though I wonder if some will be trying to save energy with Angliru on tap Sunday.
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