1 Juan Jose Cobo (Geox-TMC, LW: 10, position: leader, leads Chris Froome by 20”) - Cobo's performance the last two days was borderline inhuman. Some are saying its doping (I might be inclined to believe them), but he was riding a differently geared bike than everyone else on Angliru and that very well could have made the suffering less (I actually believe its a combination of the two). No matter, Cobo leads the Vuelta, is a climber by trade with only one summit finish left, and has no race ending time trial to kill him because the Vuelta organizers decided to only have one ITT day in the race.
2 Chris Froome (Team Sky, LW: 6, position: 2nd overall, trails Cobo by 20”) - Froome was pacing teammate Bradley Wiggins up the climb and then had to go when Wiggins couldn't follow. I still don't know who the team leader actually is, but I believe that Wiggins won't take 26” back on Froome without a stage win that he has seemed incapable of getting.
3 Bradley Wiggins (Team Sky, LW: 2, position: 3rd overall, trails Cobo by 46”) - Wiggins finally cracked as expected on Angliru. He now trails his teammate by 26”. I think he is headed for the podium, but the lack of time trial miles did him in.
4 Bauke Mollema (Rabobank, LW: 3, position: 4th overall, trails Cobo by 1'36”) - Mollema had himself a bad day on Angliru as well. Of course that was to be expected, but he also had some gear problems (lending credence to the Cobo gears advantage stance). I think he is currently in better form than Wiggins after the last two days (he had no teammates to help), but 50” is a lot of time to reach the podium.
5 Denis Menchov (Geox-TMC, LW: 10, position: 6th overall, trails Cobo by 3'01) – Menchov finally appeared in the front group on the Angliru stage. I think his legs were very good and he very well might have attacked had his teammate Cobo not been the person up the road. He has certainly been instrumental in his team leading the team classification. I think he will take some time on 5th placed Maxime Monfort before the race is over to finish in the top 5.
The rest – Other than Monfort (Leopard-Trek), nobody else even deserves a mention here. Their legs are shot and done for without question (thanks Giro).
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