Today's stage: 188 km with no catagorized climbs and downhill from the midway point. A showcase for whatever sprinters managed to survive to this point.
Who won today's stage? JJ Haedo (Saxo Bank-Sungard) guessed right at a bizarre roundabout just before the finish while others did not. He was able to cruise in to the stage win, celebrating as though he had been in a breakaway instead of a field sprint.
What matters in the GC race? Nothing. Nothing at all. Juan Jose Cobo (Geox-TMC) still leads over Chris Froome (Team Sky) and Bradley Wiggins (Team Sky).
What matters in the other competitions?
Green Jersey (Points, Sprinter Competition) – Joaquim Rodriguez (Katusha) crashed badly on the stage and now faces a battle just to get to the finish in Madrid. He didn't lose the lead in this competition as expected though because Peter Sagan (Liquigas-Cannondale) was one of the riders who went the wrong way (or tried to) at the roundabout.
Polka Dot Jersey (King of the Mountains) – No changes to this classification. David Moncoutie (Cofidis) is almost certainly going to win this for the 4th straight year with the margin he has built up.
White Jersey (Allround) – Cobo is the leader still. Bauke Mollema (Rabobank) wears the jersey and is second.
Biggest surprise: The roundabout at the end was a pretty big surprise. That is something the organizers probably should have had marked better.
Biggest disappointment: Rodriguez's crash makes the points competition a lot less interesting. I suspect that if he even makes it through the race, he won't be scoring much leaving Mollema, Sagan and Cobo to fight it out.
Other items of note: The team competition is a two team race between leading Geox-TMC and their pursuers from Leopard-Trek, 6'42” behind... Speaking of Leopard-Trek, last night it was announced that the team is merging with Radio Shack next season. Most of the Radio Shack team along with the top Leopard-Trek riders will be riding for the new Nissan-Radio-Trek team...With the abandonments of Tom Boonen (QuickStep) and Alessandro Spezialetti (Lampre-ISD), 22 riders have now abandoned the race.
What is coming tomorrow? Our sixth and final summit finish of this year's Vuelta is tomorrow. This also might be Froome and Wiggins final chance to overtake Cobo for the overall victory.
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