Today's Stage: Interesting
downhill stage away from the mountains towards to Barcelona, with a
little category 3 hill near the end to launch attackers.
Who won today's stage? Philippe
Gilbert (BMC) won his first race of the season outkicking overall
leader Joaquin Rodriguez (Katusha). The win has to be a relief for
Gilbert considering his struggles this season after winning 18 races
last season including the Ardennes sweep.
What matters in the GC race?
Rodriguez caught his rivals napping on that little climb at the end,
escaping with Gilbert. He beat them all to the line by 12 seconds
(except Valverde who was 9 seconds behind) and took a 9 second time
bonus for second place on the stage. Rodriguez now leads Chris Froome
(Team Sky) by 53 seconds, Alberto Contador (Saxo Bank-Tinkoff) by 1
minute and Alejandro Valverde (Movistar) by 1'07”.
What matters in the other
competitions?
Green Jersey (Points) – With
the high finish, Rodriguez also took over the lead in this
competition. Former leader John Degenkolb (Argos-Shimano) is tied for
second with Valverde. Degenkolb will wear the jersey Tuesday as
Rodriguez is the race leader and Degenkolb has three stage wins to
Valverde's two.
Polka Dot Jersey (King of the
Mountains, it's blue in Spain, not red) – Valverde is still the
leader here with Rodriguez now second. It will stay this way until
Saturday's summit finish atop Puerto de Ancares as there are not
enough climbing points on offer for anyone to take the jersey (there
are two sprint stages, a stage a lot like stage six and a time trial
until then along with a rest day tomorrow).
White Jersey (Allround, instead of
young rider, calculated by adding the rankings in GC, Points and KoM,
lowest score wins) – Rodriguez ascension to the top of the
points standings and second in the mountain standings gives him an
amazing score of 4 here. Considering the best possible is 3, he is
the leader. Valverde is second, but will be in the mountains jersey.
Froome is third and he will be wearing this jersey when the race
resumes on Tuesday.
Team Classification (top 3 times by
team on each stage) – No time gaps of note here. Rabobank still
leads Ag2r La Mondiale by 2'27”
Biggest surprise: Rodriguez
escaped, catching his rivals napping. Before turning into a true
Grand Tour contender, this was a built for Rodriguez type of stage
(and Gilbert too). They have dueled with each other in the Ardennes
classics in recent years and those races have finishes like this one.
It seems the other GC men forgot about this as Rodriguez escaped with
Gilbert. Though that ended as many of Rodriguez's duels with Gilbert
have (in second place to Gilbert), this time it was more about the
time than the win.
Biggest disappointment: The
other overall contenders were asleep at the wheel. There really isn't
any excuse for this. They should know this kind of finish is one
Rodriguez has won on before and at least should be alert that he
might try to escape at the end.
Other items of note: At the USA
Pro Challenge, the climb up Flagstaff Mountain finally separated the
top riders. Rory Sutherland (United Healthcare) won the stage, his
second big US stage race win after taking a stage at the recent Tour
of Utah. More importantly, defending champion Levi Leipheimer (OPQS)
attacked up the climb at well, dropping his rivals (Sutherland was a
survivor from the breakaway) and moving into the race lead. He now
leads last year's runner up Christian Vande Velde (Garmin-Sharp) by
nine seconds and last year's 3rd place Tejay van Garderen
(BMC) by 21 seconds going into a race finishing 15.3 km time trial
today... Back to the Vuelta, there have been very few abandonments
thus far in the race. Only four in fact. Enrico Gasparotto (Astana)
abandoned on stage win with two broken clavicles after crashing in
the TTT. David Boucher (FDJ) withdrew on stage 4, and two riders,
Yohann Bagot (Cofidis) and Tom Dumoulin (Argos-Shimano) failed to
finish stage 8. That is it. There haven't been the crashes that
normally mark the Tour de France early on and it has resulted in a
relatively in tact peloton thus far.
What is coming tomorrow? Rest
day with a transfer to the other side of the country. Then a sprint
stage on Tuesday.
Tomorrow's Prediction:
Degenkolb, Degenkolb and Degenkolb again. He is the only elite
sprinter in this field and he should continue to have his way with
the field in any bunch sprint.
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