Nine predominantly sweaty stages down, and the Vuelta’s in full swing. In true Vuelta style, the geography’s been unforgiving, and the time gaps minimal. Plus, listening to ITV’s Gary Imlach giving proper Spanish pronunciation a good go has been plenty of fun.
That, actually, is all ITV have got relatively right – their shambolic commentary duo of Phil Ligget and, erm, actually I don’t know who the hell the other bloke is. Whoever he is, he’s rubbish, I’m afraid – no insight. He sounds a little bit like he’s broadcasting from a retirement home, and has to sadly resort to constantly stating the bleedin’ obvious. The only saving grace is that although he makes Andy Townsend look like the Immanuel Kant of punditry, he is in fact slightly less error-prone than Phil.
Which isn’t saying much.
So watch Eurosport, basically.
Anyway, the race started with a team time-trial, and (sorry to mention them again) I’d have to agree with ITV’s punditry that plenty of teams took it carefully: the route had a fair few technical sections, and with season-shaping crash victims like Chris Froome, Dan Martin (who actually crashed in his last TTT) and Alberto Contador all racing, that was fair enough. Movistar, however, weren’t taking any chances, and despite an on-the-start-line pedal issue for key TT specialist Adriano Malori, they took the win, sticking Jonathan Castroviejo in red, and Alejandro Valverde and Nairo Quintana in the box seats, for now.
Stage 2 was a rare chance for the sprinters to have some fun, and Nacer Bouhanni had the most, enjoying a last-ditch leadout from the superbly-named Geoffrey Soupe to power his way to a relatively easy win. John Degenkolb rightly spotted that the Frenchman is the fastest man in the race, and took his wheel for second place.
Stage 3’s gently uphill finish was enough to dislodge the likes of Bouhanni, and saw both Dan Martin and Joaquim Rodriguez grab bonus seconds in second and third place respectively – neither, however, had the combination of climbing prowess and sheer power possessed by Orica-GreenEDGE’s Michael Matthews, who took both the stage win and the race lead, as Alejandro Valverde, who’d been caught up in a nasty bidon-fail crash with some team-mates, finished seven seconds behind a split having been in red after finishing ahead of Castroviejo the previous day.
The fourth stage saw Valverde chip off the front of the peloton following a nasty climb that saw off Bouhanni, but the move he was in was well caught before the line, and Degenkolb made the most of being the best sprinter left in the bunch to win. He’d repeat the feat on Stage 5, which saw Chris Froome jump out of the peloton to steal a cheeky two bonus seconds at an intermediate sprint. Tinkoff-Saxo (or whatever) saw the opportunity to make things even more horrible for everyone, given the ridiculous heat, by firing up in some crosswinds, but no-one too major was put in any trouble, and Degenkolb was this time able to best an unreasonably angry Bouhanni in the sprint.
Stage Six saw an unreasonably nasty (and warm) finish, with 10% the norm on an almost arrow-straight climb, which makes a genuine psychological difference to the process of climbing. Martin and OPQS’s Rigoberto Uran were surprisingly off the pace on what was a short-ish climb, and it was Valverde who produced the most impressive showing – simply never tiring in his work for Quintana, and powering his way to the finish with Chris Froome and then Alberto Contador on his wheel. Rodriguez was eight seconds back with Quintana fifth at 12″ as the top five contenders made themselves known. Fabio Aru flew under the radar with a strong sixth, as Valverde reclaimed the red jersey.
Stage Seven was the first day for the breakaway, and with only four men up the road, it soon became clear who the strongest members of the escape were: Alessandro De Marchi and Ryder Hesjedal. Sadly for Hesjedal, he fell foul of what I’ll simply call ‘Garmin luck’ and inexplicably crashed when taking the same line as the Italian round a corner, before having his back wheel clumsily run over by a camera motorbike just as he looked to recover himself. He’d eventually force his way to second, but that was over 90 seconds down on De Marchi, who dropped his breakaway companions for a well-earned win: he’s been Jens Voigt-ing all year. The main contenders, a couple of minutes later, all finished on the slightly uphill closing straight on the same time except for Chris Froome – who, despite where this sentence seems to be going, stole two seconds (somehow, it barely looked like one) on the line.
Bouhanni got his come-uppance for his unreasonable protestation (where he also staged a hilariously unproductive sit-in) at Degenkolb’s win on Stage 5. Well, sort of. On this occasion the Frenchman won, but only after blocking a rampaging Michael Matthews with a very wobbly flick of his bike right before the line. The Australian was travelling way faster than the FDJ rider, but graciously shrugged off his eventual second place as simply a racing incident. Noble.
Stage 9, like Stage 6 before it, flirted at the prospect of proper mountains. The finishing climb, though longer, still wasn’t too full a test. Nonetheless, bigger gaps opened up, with Contador lighting the (damp) fireworks, pursued by Rodriguez and Quintana. Valverde, Froome, Martin, Uran and Aru all followed 23 seconds later, with Valverde unwisely dragging the others to the line quicker with a final burst. That left Quintana in the red jersey, with Contador second, only three seconds back. Valverde is third, eight back, whilst the day’s winner, Winner Ancona (yep), elevated himself to fourth by winning from the break. He won’t stick about, but Froome (fifth at 28″) and Rodriguez (sixth at 30″) should. Uran, Aru, Robert Gesink and Warren Barguil complete the top ten (though not in that order, sorry).
After today’s rest day… so, tomorrow… the race resumes with a time-trial over 36.7km. The route features a third category climb, and plenty of gentle descending. This next block of racing, before the next rest day after Stage 16, is characterised by mountains, and summit finishes – the Vuelta doesn’t bother with boring, TdF-style long-descent finishes. Stages 11, 14, 15 and 16 all finish atop mountains of varying length and steepness, but the main faces will all be the same.
Stages 12 and 13 offer some respite, with the latter still featuring a nasty climb inside the final 3km, with the former providing a simpler opportunity for the sprinters.
Predictions:
Stage 10: Tony Martin
Stage 11: Joaquim Rodriguez
Stage 12: Nacer Bouhanni
Stage 13: Philippe Gilbert
Stage 14: Alejandro Valverde
Stage 15: Alberto Contador
Stage 16: Chris Froome
Naturally, some of those mountain stages will be contested by breakaway riders, but those are near-impossible to call, so I’ve just plumped for whichever GC rider the subtleties of the climbs seem to suit best.
A rest day follows on Tuesday the 9th, before the final five stages, which feature something for everyone, conclude the race.
Tricycle Stabilizers 