Category: Vuelta a Espana
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Mikel Landa manages to race, Tom Dumoulin manages to survive, Chris Froome disappears from view
A hard, hard stage. So hard that half the riders found they were too tired to race. Mikel Landa – who’ll move to Sky next year – was the only man from the breakaway to stay away. The best climber in this year’s Giro d’Italia, he can now add a memorable win on one of…
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Can Tom Dumoulin climb?
Tom Dumoulin can climb. I keep calling Tom Dumoulin ‘big’ but he’s not that big. He’s not Miguel Indurain big and being as Indurain won seven Grand Tours, we can safely assume that Dumoulin’s size is no barrier to general classification success. Stage nine finished with – and you’re not going to believe this –…
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Peter Sagan taken out by a motorbike
Peter Sagan had 7km to go. He’d got over the two climbs and there weren’t any particularly strong sprinters left in the front group. He should have been confident of finishing one place higher than usual. But then a support motorbike cleaned him out. Sagan was displeased by this. Standing around in the road immediately…
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Only minor skirmishes but Chris Froome still got dropped
For those of you wondering how a man can win the Tour de France and then get dropped in the Vuelta a Espana, it’s due to a phenomenon known as ‘being tired’. The final climb of stage seven, long though it was, wasn’t ferocious. Nor was it raced with any real gusto by the favourites.…
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Esteban Chaves has even more to smile about
Today’s stage could have appropriated the title format of one of those sensationalist ITV filler programmes and called itself When Race Leaders Attack. It was one of the Vuelta’s typical short, erratic climbs to the finish. When it was steep, little Esteban Chaves attacked. When it flattened out, big Tom Dumoulin followed him. It was…
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Caleb Ewan is the latest excuse for Esteban Chaves to smile
The ferociously happy Esteban Chaves lost the overall lead on stage five of the Vuelta after being caught the wrong side of a split in the bunch. How did he feel about that? “I’m very, very happy,” he said. And he looked it too. Chaves was mainly happy because his team-mate won. That was his…
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Alejandro Valverde can use Google StreetView
And back to second. After yesterday’s win, normal service has resumed for Peter Sagan. He didn’t seem too bothered. I guess he’s used to it by now. Alejandro Valverde was the latest person to take a turn at being the one person to finish ahead of Sagan. He checked out the up, up, down and…
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Peter Sagan elbows his way to a Grand Tour stage win (finally)
After somewhat inexplicably being awarded the green jersey after stage one, Peter Sagan said that it was like he was still in the Tour de France. If he wanted evidence that this wasn’t actually the case, it came when he won stage three. During the Tour de France, Sagan’s bridesmaidery was such that he could…
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Vincenzo Nibali – part man, part sidecar
The most interesting aspect of stage two for me was big Tom Dumoulin finishing second. It would be good to see a time triallist competing for Grand Tours again. It would bring a new dimension to the racing. I doubt it’ll happen this year, but consider this some sort of foreshadowing of things to come.…