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.
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