After almost an entire year,
Philippe Gilbert of Team BMC has broken the curse of the rainbow jersey. The
World Champion beat Edvald Boasson Hagen to the finish line on stage 12 at the
Vuelta a España today. Gilbert took his first win since his victory at the 2012
World Championship Road Race last September 23rd.
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| World Champ Gilbert breaks the curse |
The finale of stage 12
appeared to be more difficult than the profile suggested. More inclines (though
not steep) in the final kilometer particularly made a difference. The stage did
come down to a bunch sprint finish, as expected, but it proved to be slightly more
selective than I anticipated.
The peloton caught the
stage’s three early escapees inside of 19k to go, and a large field of riders
was on hand to contest the finish. Edvald Boasson Hagen launched an impressive
attack in the final 250 meters and built a quick gap, but Gilbert managed to
come from behind and overtake the big Norwegian from Team Sky, in the last 20
meters. Both riders are tuning up for the upcoming World Championships in
Tuscany. There, Gilbert will try to defend the rainbow bands in a 280k course
that is supposed to be a difficult one.
Yesterday I mentioned that I
wanted to see which sprinters were too tired from the recent tougher stages to
contest the sprint. Max Richeze of Lampre announced this morning that he was
negatively feeling the effects of the mountains. Well, it must not have been
too bad, because he finished in third place today.
Orica’s Michael Matthews who
had already bagged a stage win in week one, punctured on the run-in, and was
unable to contest the sprint today. The win eluded OPQ’s Gianni Meersman again;
he finished fifth, behind Katusha’s classics specialist, Luca Paolini.
There were no significant
changes to the leaders’ places in the general classification. Ivan Basso
managed to gain three seconds by winning the second intermediate sprint on
stage 12, and Nicolas Roche shaved two seconds off of his time for crossing the
INT line in second, behind Basso.
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| Vincenzo Nibali is still happy in red |
Vincenzo Nibali held onto
the red race leader’s jersey on stage 12; Daniel Moreno defended the green
points jersey; and Chris Horner keeps the polka dots for another day. Also,
Nicolas Roche continues to lead in the combination classification’s white
jersey.
The biggest loser today could
be Ivan Santaromita of BMC. He finished 172nd, with the grupetto, nine minutes back. He drops
out of the top 20, from 16th overall to 32nd. I have not
yet heard why, but he could be sick or tired from the mountains and the rest
day and TT, or he might have lost the time on purpose, seeing that even a top
ten finish would be a difficult at this point, so why not lose enough time so
that he could be allowed to go in a breakaway group, and vie for a stage win
somewhere. Of course everyone behind Santaromita in the top 30 moved up one
spot as a result of his plummet.
The only other changes in
the top 20 were Sammy Sanchez and Eros Capecchi swapping 15th and 14th
places, as Capecchi finished with a group ten seconds behind the first
finishing group that included Sanchez.
Just as a side note, Sammy
Sanchez, Euskaltel’s leader coming into the Vuelta, and Domenico Pozzovivo, Ag2R’s
big hope—both of whom got off to rough starts with a team time trial that left them
working to regain ground—are two of just three riders in the top 25 who have
not had a single day of losing ground so far. The third is Joaquim Rodriguez.
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| Euskaltel leader, Sammy Sanchez has not looked back |
Sanchez has improved his
position in the standings each day, except for stage six, when he maintained
his same position, like most did on that sprint stage. That is ten days of
continual improvement—including during most of the sprint stages, where most
riders just hold their positions—and one day of holding his position, as just
mentioned. He has climbed from a 79th place start to 14th
place after stage 12—an overall improvement of 65 places so far. Can Sanchez
earn himself a top-ten finish?
Purito Rodriguez started the
race just a little ahead of Sanchez, in 71st place as a result of
his Katusha team’s time trial performance. Overall Purito has moved up from 71st
to 5th place, also without a single stage of losing ground. That’s
an improvement of 66 spots so far—just edging out Sanchez’s success, but with
better times, so he is higher up—but Rodriguez had six days of improving his
position, and five days of maintaining it.
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| Domenico Pozzovivo is the most-improved rider so far |
Pozzovivo, like Rodriguez,
improved his position six times and held his position five times in the first
12 stages. However Pozzovivo started way back in 119th place after
the stage-one TTT. Since then Domenico-the-diminutive has climbed all the way
up to sixth place in the GC. That is an improvement of yes, 113 spots.
[Due to the technical
challenges of today’s stage-12 finish, the race refs moved the 3k rule out to 5k.
So any rider who got caught up in a crash or mechanical issue inside the last
5k would get the same finishing time as the group he was with before the
incident occurred. Pozzovivo can be grateful for that, because he flatted just
outside of 4k to go.]
Take it al into account and
it looks like Sanchez has been working diligently every day to move up. His
improving his standing every day but one is impressive. He gets my Spoke-n-Spin
Sledgehammer Hardest-working-rider Award for today.
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| Purito is 5th, but hungry for more hills |
Purito advanced about the
same number of places as Sanchez, but he has clawed his way up to fifth place
on GC, so he gets the Zenith Mountain Goat Award. (I’m just making these up as
I go, so if the awards all have different names next time, don’t ask why).
Pozzovivo has climbed the
furthest in the standings (among these three, and possibly overall), overtaking
113 other riders to reach his current sixth place. He gets the Spiked Outta-My-Way
Award. His forte is a big, steep climb, so his prospects for more improvement
are not out of the question, with six more summit finishes still to come. The
Italian climber cannot risk one bad day in the mountains if he hopes to finish
high. Puriito is his nearest foe, and he will be difficult to supplant.
STAGE 13 PREVIEW WILL BE
POSTED SHORTLY…
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