Vuelta Stage 19 - An Entertaining Final Sprint after a Dull Stage

Today's Stage: A sprinter's day, but an uphill sprinter's day.

Who won today's stage? Philippe Gilbert (BMC) won his second stage of the Vuelta in an interesting tactical uphill finish beating GC sprinters Alejandro Valverde (Movistar) and Joaquin Rodriguez (Katusha).

What matters in the GC race? Second place overall Valverde smartly got himself a few bonus seconds. He now trails leader Alberto Contador (Saxo Bank-Tinkoff) by 1'35” and leads third place Rodriguez 46”.

What matters in the other competitions?

Green Jersey (Points) – With the uphill sprint and bonus seconds available, Rodriguez and Valverde did battle for this jersey with Valverde closing the gap to 3 points on the leader Rodriguez. After today, it is now a two-man race for this jersey.

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 tomorrow 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) – Nothing has changed here since Tuesday. Rodriguez leads followed by Valverde and Contador.

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: John Degenkolb (Argos-Shimano) got into a four man escape with under 3 km to go, changing the tactics entirely. His presence meant nobody wanted to pull as a sprint with him in that size group was never going to work and allowed the peloton being led by Alessandro Ballan (BMC) to pull the lead group back andput Gilbert in position for the win.

Biggest disappointment: Up until the last 20 km, this stage was like watching paint dry. Actually that would be being nice to this stage. It was raced about as slow as any stage I have ever seen. When you turn the tv on and you see the peloton 25 km behind the expected pace and there is only a two-man breakaway with a Caja Rural rider and an Andalucia rider, you know it will be dull. And it was until the very end.

Other items of note: Much of the rest of the peloton is still in North America after the US Pro Challenge a couple of weeks ago. This weekend is the Canadian World Tour races with one race in Quebec today and another in Montreal on Sunday.

What is coming tomorrow? The mountain stage to end all mountain stages, Three category one climbs, a category two climb and the finish atop the fearsome Bola del Mundo. Joaquin Rodriguez had hoped this would be his coronation and maybe it still could be. All it would take is the type of attack he has never had to make before, but there is no risk to trying it. If Rodriguez can attack from long range he could still win the Vuelta. If he tries and fails, he can still lose over 7 minutes and keep his place on the podium with a sure sprint finish coming tomorrow.

Tomorrow's Prediction: Thomas De Gendt (Vaconsoleil) will take the stage in a breakaway. Alberto Contador will seal his overall victory.

Vuelta Stage 9 - One for Opportunists

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 3^rd 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.