Today's Stage: Sprinter's day.
Days like this at this point in Grand Tours are often left for the
breakaway, but with the sprinters having had few opportunities and
the breakaway fulling a fast one on one of those opportunities, the
sprint teams were always going to control this and hope they could
beat John Degenkolb (Argos-Shimano).
Who won today's stage? And beat
Degenkolb they did. Daniele Bennati (RSNT) finally got his stage win
after a couple of close calls with Bennati. Ben Swift (Team Sky) was
second and Allan Davis (Orica-GreenEdge) was third. Degenkolb ended
up fifth.
What matters in the GC race?
Nothing. And it will be that way tomorrow too. With no climbing today
and none tomorrow, the wait is now on for Bola del Mundo to decide
the ultimate winner. Alberto Contador (Saxo Bank-Tinkoff) is the
leader followed by Alejandro Valverde (Movistar) and Joaquin
Rodriguez (Katusha). Everybody else is at least 9 minutes behind
Contador.
What matters in the other
competitions?
Green Jersey (Points) – If
Degenkolb were to have a chance at a miracle comeback here, he needed
to win the stage today. He did not. Rodriguez leads followed by
Valverde and Contador.
Polka Dot Jersey (King of the
Mountains, it's blue in Spain, not red) – Simon Clarke
(Orica-GreenEdge) retained his lead again. And he will until Saturday
as there are no categorized climbs tomorrow before the final massive
stage to Bola del Mundo. Rodriguez is second and Thomas De Gendt
(Vacansoleil) is third. Expect both Clarke and De Gendt to try and
get in the breakaway on Saturday searching for the points needed to
take the final jersey as that is the only day remaining with points
available.
White Jersey (Allround, instead of
young rider, calculated by adding the rankings in GC, Points and KoM,
lowest score wins) – Ho hum. Despite the issues today,
Rodriguez retains the lead here and still won't be wearing the jersey
(he will be wearing Green tomorrow). This jersey, worn by Contador
will return to Valverde, at least during the race.
Team Classification (top 3 times by
team on each stage) – Valverde's Movistar team has blown this
open. Barring a catastrophe, the team will win this prize as it now
leads by over 17 minutes.
Biggest surprise: Degenkolb was
beaten. The only thing we hadn't seen was Degenkolb sprint after lots
of mountains and it didn't go as well as earlier in the race. Still,
when the only man to win a sprint stage during the race finishes
fifth, it is a shock.
Biggest disappointment: Elia
Viviani (Liquigas) was not there for the sprint at the end. Viviani
was dropped and finished in the second group, six seconds behind the
sprint. For Viviani, the race has been increasingly difficult in his
quest to get a stage win as it becomes evident that his team doesn't
care at al about this race. The top stage racers on the team
(Vincenzo Nibali and Ivan Basso) both were sent to Colorado for the
US Pro Challenge (where Viviani won two stages last year). Peter
Sagan is on a different program for World Championships preps. Just
an all around frustrating Vuelta for Viviani.
Other items of note: The topic
of doping in cycling has been back in the public eye ever since the
Lance Armstrong case came to the forefront of the discussion.
Yesterday, Garmin-Sharp team manager Jonathan Vaughters, who
previously confessed to doping during his career in a New York Times
op-ed, outed three former teammates of Lance Armstrong who actively
ride for his team: David Zabriskie, Tom Danielson and US Pro
Challenge winner Christian Vande Velde. Beyond that former Lance
Armstrong teammate Tyler Hamilton's book came out and while there is
the usual stuff about Lance in there, the book also goes after Bjarne
Riis, current manager of Saxo Bank-Tinkoff for organizing doping
within his team at that time (Saxo Bank's precursor was CSC and
Hamilton rode for it after leaving US Postal before ultimately
getting caught after he changed teams again and went to Phonak and
was caught in 2004)...In Vuelta news, we are down 20 riders to
withdrawals now. Linus Gerdemann (RSNT) was involved in a crash today
and had to abandon.
What is coming tomorrow? Sprint
stage. No climbs. Boredom.
Tomorrow's Prediction:
Degenkolb. He will recover after the beating he took today.
