Vuelta Stge 7 - An odd sprint on a motorcycle racing course

The stage finish was on this thing, somewhere. Not a normal finish.

Today's Stage: A sprint stage, but one far more interesting than the circuit race in stage five. The finish on a motor racing course made for something interesting that we normally don't get on sprint stages.

Who won today's stage? Still, despite the difference in sprint stages, John Degenkolb (Argos-Shimano) just wins. Today's stage win was his third of the Vuelta in three sprint stage attempts.

What matters in the GC race? Normally the answer on these sprint stages is nothing. Suprisingly, that is not the case today. Former 4^th place Rigoberto Uran (Team Sky) was dropped on the run in to the finished and dropped to 12^th place. Joaquin Rodriguez (Katusha) still leads Chris Froome (Team Sky) by 10 seconds overall.

What matters in the other competitions?

Green Jersey (Points) – Degenkolb's win moved him into an even bigger lead. To win he will still need to take nearly every opportunity as there are still seven uphill or summit finishes that he will not figure into at all along with a couple of transition stages where breakaways are likely to win. Still, the lead is more than a stage win is worth right now.

Polka Dot Jersey (King of the Mountains, it's blue in Spain, not red) – No changes again with no categorized climbs on the course. Simon Clarke (Orica-GreenEdge) is still the leader. Expect this to change tomorrow with a summit finish to deal with.

White Jersey (Allround, instead of young rider, calculated by adding the rankings in GC, Points and KoM, lowest score wins) – No change. Rodriguez still leads Alejandro Valverde (Movistar) though Valverde continues to wear the jersey with Rodriguez in the leader's red jersey.

Team Classification (top 3 times by team on each stage) – No change here on a sprint stage (there very rarely is). Sky still leads Rabobank by 1'09”.

Biggest surprise: Uran was dropped. Nobody really knows why, but Uran gave up over a minute today and just like that Sky has no back up card to play for the GC. Uran and Sergio Henao are now 10^th and 12^th overall instead of their expected positions in the top five to seven riders.

Biggest disappointment: Nobody is really challenging Degenkolb in the sprints. Sprint stages are problematic as it is. They are long and often dull and boring. To have the same winner on all of them makes it that much worse. Somebody in this field of admittedly weaker sprinters needs to step up and beat Degenkolb once, just to add some flavor and intrigue here.

Other items of note: The bigger story in cycling today is the Lance Armstrong affair. Other than this blip, I'm not writing about it. Armstrong was stripped of his Tour titles and banned for life. While I have always maintain he doped, I maintain that basically everyone else in the peloton did. I'm happy the sport seems to be cleaner now but there is no need to retroactively change the results. Let's face it, if we gave the Tour de France wins to the second place rider in those Tours, we have a list of convicted and suspected dopers. He couldn't be busted then, leave it alone. Prosecute him and ban him if you want (I have no problem there) but leave the tainted results alone, just as we have done with the steroid era in baseball... At the USA Pro Challenge, Jens Voigt (RSNT) escaped for an incredible solo win yesterday. Below him, Tejay van Garderen (BMC) and Christian Vande Velde (Garmin-Sharp) finished on the same time again, but the jersey switched back to van Garderen by virtue of his higher finish on the stage.

What is coming tomorrow? Another summit finish. If you haven't figured out what this year's Vuelta is about, this should be the final clue. This is the third summit finish in only eight stages with another stage having had an uphill finish. This kind of relentless climbing pace just continues the whole race.

Tomorrow's Prediction: Race leader Joaquin Rodriguez trains on the roads to Andorra and therefore will want the win. That means a breakaway victory is unlikely. Prediction is Alberto Contador, Rodriguez, Chris Froome.