Alberto Contador, for all his heroics on a bike, shouldn’t consider a post-retirement career in medicine.
His initial diagnosis was that his fractured tibia would rule him out of the Vuelta entirely, but he ended up turning up anyway. Contador then revised his assessment of the situation, pledging to try and be competitive in the race’s final week – only to skip up some uphill finishes alongside the favourites, and even order his team to mash the peloton in the crosswinds.
Contador accepted that his form was a lot better than he’d have thought, but said he wasn’t going to attack in the mountains, and would simply ride his own pace. Guess what? He’s attacked in the mountains, rode a great time-trial, and now sits in the race lead with just five stages to race.
This looks like a classic case of publicly setting low expectations just in case you can’t meet your own, genuine ones. But Contador had every reason to say each of the things he did. For starters, the man left the Tour de France with a broken leg – no matter how minor the break, it’s a very serious injury indeed, and to go to the Vuelta at all is quite something. Secondly, Contador presumably couldn’t really train on his broken leg for any sustained amount of time prior to the race, so not being competitive in the first two weeks, at least, is a safe assumption.
Having surprised himself, he’d have presumably looked to consolidate in the mountains, and ridden his own tempo – but who are we kidding? It’s Alberto Contador – attacking and following attacks are his own pace – rarely does he sit there and tap out a rhythm on the front of the group.
We left the Vuelta at the end of Stage 9, with Nairo Quintana in red. With a gentle climb-and-descent time-trial looming as the next stage, Quintana would probably have assumed he’d have to hand that red jersey right back to the podium girls, but not quite in the fashion that he did, as he spectacularly stacked it on a downhill bend after nonsensically attempting a minor, and likely irrelevant, shoe adjustment – managing to rip off his saddle in the process, which is no mean feat.
This, incidentally, is in slow-motion – that he’s even taking his hand off the bars at this speed is a bad idea.
A heavily bruised Quintana lost a whopping 4’07” on the stage, which he did well to finish. He even started the next one, but swiftly withdrew after suffering another crash, in which he broke his scapula. Bad luck level: Steven Gerrard.
Oh, Tony Martin won the stage, but you guessed that anyway. What you may not have guessed is that Rigoberto Uran placed second, fifteen seconds back on his team-mate after Fabian Cancellara had a small handful of seconds docked for alleged drafting. Contador was fourth, 39 seconds back, with Chris Froome, by his own admission, going into the red too early on the stage, and paying for it, finishing 1’32” back, in tenth, and losing 53″ to Contador on a stage where he should have gained time. Alejandro Valverde was a respectable eighth, one minute down, as Contador took the red jersey.
Stage 11, a solid mountain test, was marred by Quintana’s withdrawal, and saw Valverde confirmed as Movistar’s leader for the Vuelta – no easy task given his late-season exploits so far. Steve Morabito (BMC) got run over by a motorbike in the same crash, which… sucks, really. Fabio Aru took advantage of being adequately behind on GC to win by six seconds with a well-timed late burst.
The stage was largely enlivened not by the men at the front, but by Chris Froome, who dangled off the back of the lead group for much of the climb, as his team-mate Dario Cataldo, bizarrely, set tempo on the front. Whether or not Sky intended to do exactly this is unclear, but Froome was veritably dropped on at least one occasion with Cataldo setting pace.
Contador attacked further to drop Froome, but the 2013 Tour de France winner was clearly riding to a certain power output, and judged it perfectly to finish on the same time as Contador, Valverde and Joaquim Rodriguez – six seconds down on Aru.
Stage 12 was a circuit race built for the sprinters, and John Degenkolb took full advantage of a crash (which I haven’t seen, but I assume it took out Nacer Bouhanni, given his absence in the finale) to win ahead of a form-finding Tom Boonen. Both Boonen and Degenkolb (and Bouhanni, apparently, if you ask him) are interesting candidates for this year’s World Championships road race, which again serves up an interesting balance of climbing and a flat finish.
The punchy Stage 13 kept the GC riders frosty, with Froome even trying a dig after the final climb inside the final 2km. Valverde opted to blunt his own sprint in closing down the Sky rider, but no-one could catch Daniel Navarro of Cofidis, who surged clear on that climb to take a valuable win for his wildcard team, with the GC riders all finishing on the same time, with Bouhanni an impressive fifth.
Stage 14 was the first of the savage trio of climbing stages mentioned in the previous post, and saw Peter Sagan withdraw, and Luis Leon Sanchez take the KoM jersey. Froome, meanwhile, again dropped off the pace to stare doggedly at his power reading, and that tactic came good as he caught his GC rivals, who had distanced him, and put seven seconds into Contador on the line. Up the road, however, the breakaway had contested the stage, with Contador’s enigmatic team-mate Oliver Zaugg (who has won one Monument and nothing else in his career) looking to have it sewn up in the final 200m before Garmin’s Ryder Hesjedal came from nowhere to epically sprint past the Swiss rider and take the stage by a healthy ten seconds, given the leisurely crawl with which he crossed the line.
Next up, same deal – ish. The break again triumphed, but only just as Przemyslaw (I’ve actually spelt that right first time) Niemiec winning by five seconds ahead of Valverde and Rodriguez, with Contador a further five seconds back, but reclaiming the seven he lost to Froome on the previous day. Froome again opted to let pretty much everyone disappear up the road before reeling them in, sort of, in the finale.
Quite what Froome’s tactic is based on is hard to say, either he’s not feeling on top form and is simply using the most efficient way to get the most out of his body, or this is simply a new tactic being trialled by Sky. Either way, he was tantalisingly close to getting onto the back wheels of Contador, Valvderde and Rodriguez just before the final pitch, and opted not to sprint across the short gap, persisting with the power meter tactic.
Stage 16 must’ve seen some very big power readings on Chris Froome’s race computer, because Sky took over on the final climb of the queen stage, and their leader didn’t disappoint, dropping Valverde and Rodriguez with a race-grabbing attack, with only a wincing Contador able to follow.
Froome didn’t seem to ask Contador for any help, and the Spaniard capitalised on his generosity by springing clear in the final 500m to take the stage by fifteen seconds, with Froome moving up to third on GC, three seconds behind Valverde, who is 1’36” down on Contador in turn.
The final five stages after today’s rest day see a bit of everything, with a punchy, but Degenkolb-friendly Stage 17 followed by a summit finish atop a hill the next day. It is, most certainly, a hill and not a mountain, and it comprises all the proper climbing the peloton will do that day, although it is climbed twice inside the final 30km. The slightly downhill finish, with the hill topping out inside the final kilometre, will favour Valverde. With the climb averaging around 9.4% (by my estimates) for just over 4km, it should produce some gaps, and given the flimsiness of Contador’s team, I’d expect Movistar, Sky and Katusha to take control.
Stage 19’s final climb is a nasty second-category ramp inside the final 20km (8.4% for 4.7km), but after that it’s a relatively straightforward drive to the line. GC changes are unlikely.
Stage 20 sees the final mountain battle played out, and by this point, I’d expect Contador to still be in red, and be on full defensive for most of the final climb. I suspect he’ll crown his Vuelta with a win by the end, but he’ll have to tackle an undulating climb with gradients of 18% to do so over a 12.7km climb with an average of 8.6%.
Stage 21’s pan-flat 9.7km individual time-trial rounds out the Vuelta, and given Froome and Valverde’s proximity on GC, it could prove relatively decisive.
Predictions
Stage 17 – Nacer Bouhanni
Stage 18 – Alejandro Valverde
Stage 19 – Philippe Gilbert
Stage 20 – Alberto Contador
Stage 21 – Tony Martin
Overall – Alberto Contador
Points – Alejandro Valverde
KoM – Luis Leon Sanchez
Combined – Alejandro Valverde
Tricycle Stabilizers 