Big Days in the Big Mountains at La Vuelta a Espana

Today was an epic battle for day 14 of La Vuelta a Espana; it was the third day of mountain top finishes in a row - on paper, arguably the hardest three days of racing in a Grand Tour this year. When the overall contenders hit the 12% - 14% slopes of the Sierra de la Pandera climb to the finish, it was the 23 year old Dutchman, Robert Gesink who put in surge at the front after Ivan Basso (Italy) had gone to the front to stretch some legs. Gesink, who came into the day in second place overall and only 27" behind Alejandro Valverde, timed his surge perfectly as Valverde was already in trouble from the effort Ivan Basso had made. Valverde came unhitched from the Gesink led group, and it looked like Valverde would likely loose his jersey. But, Valverde didn't panic - which likely would have caused him to ride until he blew up; instead, he stayed within himself over those few kilometers which were the steepest part of the climb, and later proceeded to reel in first Ivan Basso and Cadel Evans (Australia), and later the man who was the source of his alarm (and pain!) - Robert Gesink. By the finish Valverde had even shed Gesink and picked up another 4", which makes Valverde look more and more like a man who cannot be broken in this three-week test. Here's Valverde before everything started to unravel:

Oh, did I mention that it was also raining? Well, it was.

The winner today came from an early group of escapees, which made it to the final two climbs with a healthy advantage of over 7' on the pack. Damiano Cunego emerged from that group of nine men, to take his second victory of this year's Vuelta - and they have both come in mountain top finishes - his first being back in stage eight on the Alto de Aitana. Here's Cunego getting close to the summit, surrounded by throngs of enthusiastic fans:

By the time Cunego made it to the finish, he still had over 2' advantage over his nearest chaser:

Had it not been for the very untimely puncture on the Sierra Nevada climb yesterday, in stage 13, Cadel Evans (Australia) might have been able to challenge Valverde for the overall - because he can out time trial Valverde on the penultimate day on stage 20. But, for Evans, no support cars were within sight when he punctured on the Sierra Nevada because all the team cars were stuck behind the exploding peloton on the narrow roads. Evans lost almost a minute while the neutral support fiddled with putting a new rear wheel on his bike (possibly the slowest wheel change I've ever seen!), and finally his team car arrived with his spare bike. He chased hard, initially making up ground, but eventually cracked from the effort and lost just over a minute to Alejandro Valverde. That has pretty much taken the wind out of his sails for any chances of an overall victory.

There are still seven more days of racing in this Spanish Grand Tour, and though there are lots of mountains looming on the horizon, there are no actual mountain top finishes remaining. Valverde is a better time trialist than his nearest challenger (Gesink) and pretty similar to Samuel Sanchez (Olympic Gold Medalst - Beijing) who sits in third at 1'10". At this point, La Vuelta looks to be Valverde's to loose.

Only after the next seven days will anyone know for certain, but it looks more and more like Alejandro Valverde will finally take his first ever overall Grand Tour Victory on September 20th in Madrid, Spain.

You can check out the daily action on Universal Sports TV:

http://www.universalsports.tv/Universal_Sports_on_TV.html)

and on the web (which has finally started archiving our TV broadcasts) at:

http://www.universalsports.com/ViewArticle.dbml?DB_OEM_ID=23000&ATCLID=204770092

After Four Days of Racing, La Vuelta a Espana Makes the Transfer from Belgium to Spain

The first four days of the Tour of Spain have been a battle of nerves, constant fighting for position, luck and attrition. Considering the mountainous course the organizers have served up in the final Grand Tour of the year, you wouldn't have known it from the first four days which began in The Netherlands, dipped briefly into Germany and finished in Belgium. With the narrow roads, bricks and cobblestones, innumerable medians, roundabouts and various other road furniture, wind and rain, the collective frayed nerves of the peloton could be seen play out time and again - crashes, both large and small, have been a constant companion along with the race. The worst crash was on day four, and you can view it as Steve and I called it for Universal Sports:

http://www.universalsports.com/mediaPlayer/media.dbml?id=646459&db_oem_id=23000

Unfortunately for American Chris Horner, he ended up breaking his wrist in that crash and has been forced out of competition for the fourth time this season; Tour of CA in March (knee injury), Tour of the Basque Country (broken clavicle), Giro d'Italia (broken leg), and now this. Chris always has such a good attitude through it all, and he's an incredibly talented and respected athlete. He was one of the "protected" riders on Team Astana for the Vuelta, and I was hoping to see him shine come the mountains of Spain. It is truly a shame to see him injured again, and I wish him a fast recovery and a much more fortunate season in 2010.

After that crash, there were only six riders left to contest the finish, and Andre Greipel, the German riding for the U.S. Columbia - HTC team took his 16th win of the season. He's racked up the second largest number of race wins in men's professional cycling this year, behind his teammate Mark Cavendish - who just won six stages of the Tour de France, and has over 20 wins to his credit this season.

Even in the less than appealing weather, huge crowds awaited the riders in The Netherlands and Belgium, surprising even the race organizers and the riders themselves, but most everyone will be glad to leave the treacherous conditions behind as they head into the more familiar terrain of this race - which will be found in Spain. Mountains get slowly introduced over the next several days, but by Sunday there will be no mistake about what lies ahead - the terrain in this Vuelta will be the more difficult than the Tours of Italy or France. The climbs are ridiculously steep, some reaching grades close to 20% in the ensuing days, and that all begins with Sunday's 111 mile affair which has eight different rated climbs - this will be the first day to see who is likely to be amongst the contenders when the race finishes two weeks later, in Madrid. Luckily for the riders, the climbs on day eight are not the steepest, or the longest climbs of the race, but those days will not be far away.

There are three consecutive mountain top finishes on days 12, 13 and 14, and if anyone still has any snap in his legs at that point there will not be many riders left to contend with. With three consecutive days finishing on major climbs, a rider who's got the acceleration and the staying power to back up an attack will be able to gain big time on most all, if not all, of his rivals.

With just under 40 miles of time trials in this year's race, one thing's for certain - the winner will make his mark in the mountains.