The first road stage in this year's Vuelta and we stick in Portugal all day today. There is a bit of a nasty shock in store for the riders first half of todays stage with some real leg breaking climbs. Two are categorised, rather meanly only given 3rd category status which is more of an indicator of things to come.
There are also 3 sprints which in the early stages can help riders move fairly dramatically forward on the general classification.
There are a lot of teams who have limited GC ambitions and it is obvious from the early going that they will be trying for breakaways with 13 riders attempting to get away in the hilly opening.
Mauro Facci Andreas Stauff Rafaâ Chtioui Martin Reimer Sebastian Lang Freddy Johansson Tom Leezer Eric Berthou Ethan Weiss Patrick Gretsch Thomas De Gendt Maxime Bouet Alexandre Aulas
are the riders trying to make todays break.
But the succession of hills it making it difficult for them to form the break properly, by the time we get to the first categorised climb we are down to 9 riders. Facci, Aulas, Bouet, Reimer, Berthou, Chtoui, Stauff, Johansson and De Gendt make it away with the first four in the list going for the King of the Mountains initial prime.
It's Facci of the beleaguered Warner Brothers team who takes the six points at the top ahead of Aulas and Bouet. Aulas is here in the break assumedly as a marker for Jurgen Roelandts as he is not doing any work to help the pace.
Behind in the pack Santander are keeping things sensible with Wiggle also occasionally helping out, they are keeping their leaders out of trouble in the early stages.
The initial climb has hurt the break and the pace from attacking for the king of the mountains prime has split them into a group of 5 (Aulas, Reimer, Bouet, Facci, Stauff) and a group of four (Bertou, Johansson, Chtoui and De Gendt). It means only the first five will have a crack at the first sprint which is taken by Reimer ahead of Aulas and Facci.
Reimer started the day at 1.09, Aulas 1.39 and Facci 2.07. In fact Facci is sitting in second last of the non control riders perhaps saving himself for a break early doors.
With 130km of the stage left and midway through this tough early climbing section the five have 2 minutes on the four behind with the pack timed at six minutes. There are a few riders struggling even at the pack's relatively slow pace over these steep hills Alex Rasmussen being the rider furthest back.
Berthou in the second group is working particularly hard behind with De Gendt of course with Bouet forward just sitting in.
He drops Sony's Johannson and also Chtoui as he comes across with his follower De Gendt. It is an excellent effort from the Pearl Adidas rider to bridge across what was a wide gap.
With Chroui and Johannson dropped with have seven riders left out front and going through the second KoM climb it is Facci who does enough by coming second to the rampaging Berthou. Reimer takes third place on this climb, so Facci is the only rider to score at both and has 10 KoM points and if he makes it to the finish line will take that jersey.
Before we exit the hilly region one more rider is dropped and it is Vesuvio's young German sprinter Stauff. Leaving us with six in front (Reimer, Boeut, Aulas, Berthou, De Gendt and Facci), interestingly it has two Milka riders in it. Milka were looking for that win through Jerome Coppel yesterday, though Coppel could not get anywhere near to the unbeatable time of Michael Rogers. They are playing a different hand today.
Reimer takes the second sprint ahead of Bouet and Aulas.
The six leaders will be using these primes to move themselves forward on GC and the relative positions of the riders on the classification once time bonuses are deducted are as follows:
De Gendt (at 41 seconds)
Bouet (at 42 seconds)
Reimer (at 57 seconds)
Berthou (at 80 seconds)
Aulas (at 93 seconds)
Facci (at 127 seconds)
So the Milka riders really are in pole position but they could do with watching Reimer and late breaks from the other three. The six though are happy enough to work together for now with the gaps as follows with 100km to go:
Reimer, Bouet, Aulas, Berthou, De Gendt, Facci
Lead
Stauff
at 1.50
Chtoui
at 2.35
Johansson
at 4.50
Pack
at 7.50
It should be noted that in addition to B and O's Rasmussen there is 13 additional riders who are some way behind the pack, who will need to watch the time limit which is fairly severe on a flat stage. They are: Gregor Gazvoda Alexander Giraldo Michael Ford Lars Ytting Bak Viktor Renäng Patrick Gretsch Yauheni Hutarovich Dennis Van Winden Kristof Goddaert Ramunas Navardauskas Ben Curfs Sven Vandousselaere
and Tyler Butterfield
These 14 riders are timed at 15 minutes back from the lead six with 75km to go and with the time limit estimated to be at just over twenty minutes they are going to have to keep their pace high. Fortunately there isn't too many nasty hills in the run in.
However the roads are a little potholey as Benoît Vaugrenard experiences crashing with about 65km to go.
The French rider drops out of the pack here (but not back to the autobus!).
The pack are timed at four minutes behind our break with 50km to go and it is still the hero of the hour Banos Ballester who leads the pack, the sprinters teams keeping their powder for the last possible moment. It is worth remembering that with Aulas ahead and two riders dropped Carmuese who usually like this sort of chase are handicapped.
At the third sprint the two Milka riders in the break drop the ball really allowing a fast Reimer to take the bonifications again. The Spyker rider has taken the maximum 18 points from these sprints and he has really closed down on the two chocolate men.
Aulas was second here with Bouet third. It means that Bouet is now our virtual leader his relative GC placing at 40 seconds, teammate De Gendt is at 41 seconds and Reimer is at 51 seconds.
The sprinters teams have woken up to the chance of a sprint with Wikipedia (for Juan Van Heerden
) and Webeffect (for Óscar Avelino
) coming forward.
There is a little hill that the riders have to climb with 20km to go:
As we approach the bump the gap between the break and the lead six (all other breakaways have been caught) it is at two minutes.
The distance of the day and perhaps the shock of the early climbs is shredding the pack down somewhat with riders like Michael Faerk Christensen Casper Jørgensen
and Óscar Solis
losing touch.
B and O are losing their chrono men all over the shop, but they look to make some kind of impact realising now the break are now within bridging distance Steven Kruijswijk
tries to go for it attacking.
Some of the sprinters are also being shelled out the back notably Italian Paride Grillo
and Cafe de Colombia man Jaime Alberto Castañeda
13.5km to go the gap is at 1.15, it looks catchable but the pack have to keep the pace high. The are coming through a nasty windy section and....
It's a massive crash in the latter third or so of the pack, a good forty or so riders are affected. Wiggle riders are noticeably dropping back...
It holds up the chase somewhat with pack seemingly slowing down to count on numbers and the break take advantage re-establishing a decent 90 second lead coming into the last 6km. Kruijswijk is in no man's land between still 50 of so second behind the lead six.
At 3km to go it is 40 seconds between the lead six and Kruijswijk with the pack at 2.10 and now speeding up and the Popovich group at 3.30. Way behind the Autobus has split on the climb with six riders now detached from that looking set to be more than twenty minutes back, will the organisors be kind on them?
It looks like the break are going to take this and indeed the GC lead could be there surely either De Gendt, Bouet or Reimer will take over the red jersey.
De Gendt who hasn't been able to take any of the bonuses on the intermediates decides to lead things out for team-mate Bouet.
It's De Gendt then Reimer, Facci, Bouet, Berthou and Aulas. So Bouet can keep an eye on Reimer, remember that Boeut has 11 seconds on Reimer.
The other riders though have a stage win on their mind too and it is Facci on third wheel who blinks first. Bouet has a choice to make here, follow Facci or move to Reimer's wheel.
Bouet goes with Facci as does Berthou with Aulas looking like he doesn't really have a big sprint left.
Under the kite, Reimer has left it late here and as De Gendt tries to slow him down he moves around. It could be a little late but with Bouet under pressure losing a fast Facci's wheel and Berthou pressing it could be enough for Reimer if he can take second.
600m to go and Reimer can see that red jersey prize here and is even closing on Facci.
Bouet is fading fast and Milka's second crack at the red jersey is disappearing fast with Reimer speeding past Facci, it looks like all the glory is for the young German.
Spyker came here with limited ambitions of an outside stage win, they have this and what will be a surprising red jersey as well for Martin Reimer. Stage win and red jersey for Spyker.
Facci is second and he will have the King of the Mountains jersey with Berthou, remember looking briefly like he had missed out on the break fighting to take third. Bouet is 4th and moves to second on GC ahead of teammate De Gendt with Aulas between them on the stage.
The sprinters have missed out on a stage win here but they are testing their legs ahead of hoped for sprint battles in the coming days.
Juan Van Heerden
and Mark Cavendish
are leading the charge.
Kruijsvijk comes home 7th, his late attack enough to move him to the same position on GC.
Van Heerden manages to edge out Cavendish and a fast finishing Roelandts for the 8th place.
Wiggle lead in the Popovich/Gamez Marchente group behind. It's a shame for GC candidates to lose time on the opening road stage, but unfortunately a common occurrence. They lose two minutes and twelve seconds.
At least they are still in the race, the directors feel that six riders have not completed the course in a sufficient time and harshly they will be disqualified from the race.
The names Gregor Gazvoda Viktor Renäng Ramunas Navardauskas Michael Ford Alex Rasmussen
and Alexander Giraldo
We also lose three more riders due to injuries from the crash Aidis Kruopis Chris Barton
and Matthieu Sprick
It is very bad news for Wikipedia losing two of their best climbers, but also problems for Sony, Festine, B and O and Vesuvio losing some stroung TTers for stage 9 already.
So all change on GC as the riders in the break take up the first five places. Rogers is down to 6th and Kruijswijk is in 7th with Facci edging out Coppel for 8th. However the big GC news really is the likes of Popovich and Gomez Marchante losing time, Festina number two Serpa also was in this second group. GC:
Points
Reimer won all three sprint points and the final dash, it means that he could well keep the points jersey for a couple of days. Rogers will wear that points jersey tomorrow for being in second to the GC leader in the points.
Mountains
Facci looked the most eager in the climbs and gets to wear the jersey for a couple of days as there are no primes tomorrow.
Rank
Name
Team
Mountain
1
Mauro Facci
Warner Brothers
10
2
Eric Berthou
Pearl Adidas
6
3
Alexandre Aulas
Carmeuse - Bouygues Telecom
4
4
Maxime Bouet
Milka - Vittel
2
5
Martin Reimer
Spyker Cars
2
Youth
As the GC changes as does the youth rankings. Notable riders to lose time in the crash were Tom Diggle (Wiggle), Kangert (Pearl Adidas), Kittel (Vesuvio), Dees (Festina) and of course the incumbent Dennis Van Winden (Jack Wolfskin) who only just stayed in the race.
Teams
It may seem like minor movements at this stage, but as we saw in the Giro repeated breakaways is a way of getting a decent advantage over better climbing teams. Milka with two in the break (and a pretty decent position from yesterdays time trial) go into the team lead ahead of Pearl Adidas. Pearl Adidas also overtake Jack Wolfskin and the team worst off from todays crash is Festina who drop down to the back of the pack.
