198 riders will start their journey in 68th edition of Vuelta a Espana but only one can take red jersey home. Here are top favourites for GC.


Top Favourite:




Alberto is motivated more than ever. His main advantage but also his main weaknes is that he has only 2 race days this year! He ended 17th in San Sebastian where he showed him self with an attack few kilometers before the finish. El Pistolero is for sure Top favourite but with weak team to support him in his journey.


Top Favourite:




Rodriguez is posibly the best climber in the world. He can lost a lot of time in Individual Time Trials but he can easily take it back in mountains.
Route includes 13 mountain/hill stages and only TTT and one ITT.
With profile like this Joaquin is for sure one of top favourites for GC.
Biggest weaknes is that he raced already 72 days!

Top Favourite:



Alejandro has best planed shape of these 4 that's for sure. With 45 race days he will try to use his form to his main advantage. He is not best climber of these two nor the best time-trialer but he can do both decent enough to be considered as a top favourite.



Top Favourite:


Chris Froome already has Tour de France in his legs. He finished on a great 4th place but his main effort there was to help his team-mate Wiggins win le Tour. He will probably loose a lot of time because he was there as this is first time he is doing two GT in one year.


Notable Favourites:

Samy Sanchez
Daniel Martin
Denis Menchov
Andrew Talansky

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Points Jersey:
As the Vuelta has 13 mountain/hill stages this jersey will probably go for a climber. But let's talk about Fast Men in the peloton.



Mark Cavendish


Mark is probably fastest cyclist in the world but with such a strong competition. He will be happy to win 3 stages.


Andre Greipel



Gorilla is here to fight for glory. He want to prove he is better than Mark. But
in good enough shape to beat his rival?


Marcel Kittel



Marcel want to show his jersey to the world as Argos is nearly sure to advance to WT this year.

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Young Riders:

Nairo Quintana
David Veilleux
Andrew Talansky

KOM:
Rui Costa
Denis Menchov
Samy Sanchez

Team:
Movistar
Sky
Garmin


Full Startlist:




This was the first part of presentation. Tommorow I will do presentation only about our team and our goals for Vuelta.
Hope you liked it. I also have one small competition on my mind.
Stay tuned.

Rui

Lets hope that the team have a Great Vuelta, Good Luck

Costa going for KoM?

Sutty: thank you
Ian: you will read in a moment!

also thanks SSJ2Luigi for funny post

Vuelta a Espana movistar presentation part 2

Hi I would like to talk about our squad, team goals and also personal goals.
We are sending really strong squad. Our sponsor want nothing less than top 3. But he would like to see one of us taking home general classification.
Here is the full list:



Leader:

Alejandro Valverde

Alejandro is our main leader he will do his best to place in GC as high as possible.

Sprinter:

Francisco Alberdi
Francisco can't compare to top sprinters in the world with his speed but with good combination of hill and sprinting abillty he will try to surprise big guns and take a win.

Free Elements:

Juan José Cobo

Juan is here mostly for Alejandro. He said earlier this week that he really enjoyed leading role in Tour de France and will do everything he can to help Alejandro win.

Rui Costa

Team said to me earlier this weak that I will fight for Mountain jersey. It kinda surprised me that we will even fight for that jersey. But it will be something new for me as I never fought for a KOM in GT.

Team Mates:

Quintana, Arroyo, Durán

These three are here mainly for mountains. We all know what Quintana can do. Arroyo and Durán will also help in chasing.

Castroviejo is here for mostly for flat stages but also for TTT.

Smirnyagin is here as a main last leadout man for Alberdi.


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I wanted to hear you tips on some results. Now when you know startlist.
Rules are simple. You just need to fill this form and post it here.



At the end we will find out who has the best smell. I also have some tips but I won't be posting them until all of you will submit of your tips.
You can post your tips until. Whenever you want. You can't win anything but ok to make it fair let's say until the before the 3rd stage.
Hope you will share your tips.

I need to go to bed now. Tommorow is team time trial and I want to do everything I can.

Seeya tommorow

Rui

GC winner: Contador
Points winner: Cavendish
KOM winner: Costa!!!!!
Young riders winner: Quintana
Best team: Movistar
Most wins(rider): Contador
My best GC position(through the race): 6th
My GC position(final position): 13th

GC winner: Valverde
Points winner: Contador
KOM winner: Menchov
Young riders winner: Talensky
Best team: Sky
Most wins(rider): Valverde
My best GC position(through the race): 10th
My GC position(final position): 17th

GC winner: Contador
Points winner: Contador
KOM winner: Costa
Young riders winner: Quintana
Best team: Katusha
Most wins(rider): Contador
My best GC position(through the race): 8th
My GC position(final position): 13th

GC winner: Valverde
Points winner: Cavendish
KOM winner: Costa
Young riders winner: Talansky
Best team: Movistar
Most wins(rider): Contador
My best GC position(through the race): 4th
My GC position(final position): 7th

Top favourites for today:

Garmin,Sky,Movistar


We were working hard on Team Time Trials and with the small steep hill at the end we can also use fact that we are best climbing team in Vuelta.

Race:
We started strong. Our goal for the first part of time trial was not to loose any rider on small hills. We did our job perfectly. At the intermediate time check we were 2nd only 2 second behind Sky. Garmin was 3rd 5 seconds behind Sky.



When we reached the final steep hill we were still together! I have to say our young sprinter again showed that he can do TTT like nobody. He sprinted from our train and took leaders jersey!!!!

1	Movistar Team	19'55	19'55 (1)
2	Sky ProCycling	+ 7	+ 7 (2)
3	Garmin - Sharp	+ 9	+ 9 (3)
4	FDJ-Big Mat	s.t.	+ 9 (4)
5	BMC Racing Team	+ 12	+ 12 (5)
6	Rabobank Cycling Team	+ 14	+ 14 (6)
7	Ag2r La Mondiale	+ 19	+ 19 (7)
8	Omega Pharma-QuickStep	+ 25	+ 25 (8)
9	Katusha Team	+ 27	+ 27 (9)
10	RadioShack-Nissan	+ 29	+ 29 (10)
11	Astana Pro Team	+ 38	+ 38 (11)
12	Team Argos - Shimano	+ 44	+ 44 (12)
13	Lotto Belisol Team	+ 51	+ 51 (13)
14	Team Europcar	+ 56	+ 56 (14)
15	Team Saxo Bank-Tinkoff Bank	+ 1'06	+ 1'06 (15)
16	Liquigas-Cannondale	+ 1'10	+ 1'10 (16)
17	Vacansoleil-DCM Pro Cycling Team	+ 1'11	+ 1'11 (17)
18	Orica GreenEDGE	+ 1'18	+ 1'18 (18)
19	Cofidis, le Crédit en Ligne	+ 1'22	+ 1'22 (19)
20	Euskaltel - Euskadi	+ 1'27	+ 1'27 (20)
21	Caja Rural	+ 1'32	+ 1'32 (21)
22	Lampre - ISD	+ 1'37	+ 1'37 (22)

1	Mars Smirnyagin	Movistar Team	19'55
2	Francisco José Ventoso Alberdi	Movistar Team	s.t.
3	Rui Alberto Faria Costa	Movistar Team	s.t.
4	Rubén Plaza Molina	Movistar Team	s.t.
5	David Arroyo Durán	Movistar Team	s.t.
6	Juan José Cobo Acebo	Movistar Team	s.t.
7	Jonathan Castroviejo Nicolás	Movistar Team	s.t.
8	Nairo Alexander Quintana Rojas	Movistar Team	s.t.
9	Alejandro Valverde Belmonte	Movistar Team	s.t.

I have to thank the team again! We did one hell of a job and I'm provisionaly 3rd!! I just can't believe it.
I also wanted to thank you all for your tips. Keep them coming.
Tommorow is a hilly stage. We will try to keep jersey in the team.

Seeya soon

Rui

What a way to start
Wow, nice in-game screenshots, looks real

Great start... I guess.

Ian:I bought a new PC and now I have such a good graphics and unfortunetly yes...

Freitas: It sure was. When I was writing report I realised it was like in real life.

What a Brilliant TTT performance

Sutty: Thanky you

Vuelta a Espana stage 2

Profile:


Last 5kms




Profile of the stage looks quite hilly but there are not any really steep hills and we expect a bunch sprint.


Race:

Right from the start 4 riders attacked and their biggest gap was 7 minutes.


We weren't chasing cause Lotto,Sky and Orica went to front.




Castroviejo tried to bring Smirnyagin and Alberdi to the front.



Smirnyagin in the red jersey was able to stay with him but Alberdi got stuck.
Castroviejo decide to go even without Alberdi. Cobo somehow found a wheel of Smirnyagin and tried his sprint.



But he is just not a sprinter. Goss took a deserved victory. His team was working all day.
I Alberdi and Castroviejo decided to have a little sprint duel. I won but that's only because Castroviejo was leading out for 3 kms and Alberdi was also trying to get in front.



What's worse Rollin who was in the BOD will be wearing GC jersey tommorow. Maybe that's a good thing though.

Stage:

1	Matthew Harley Goss	Orica GreenEDGE	4h21'58
2	André Greipel	Lotto Belisol Team	s.t.
3	Thor Hushovd	BMC Racing Team	s.t.
4	Davide Viganò	Lampre - ISD	s.t.
5	Heinrich Haussler	Garmin - Sharp	s.t.
6	Grega Bole	Lampre - ISD	s.t.
7	Mark Cavendish	Sky ProCycling	s.t.
8	Óscar Freire Gómez	Katusha Team	s.t.
9	Robert Wagner	RadioShack-Nissan	s.t.
10	Geraint Howell Thomas	Sky ProCycling	s.t.
...
33	Rui Alberto Faria Costa	Movistar Team	s.t.

GC:

1	Dominique Rollin	FDJ-Big Mat	4h41'50
2	Juan José Cobo Acebo	Movistar Team	+ 3
3	Mars Smirnyagin	Movistar Team	s.t.
4	David Arroyo Durán	Movistar Team	s.t.
5	Francisco José Ventoso Alberdi	Movistar Team	s.t.
6	Rui Alberto Faria Costa	Movistar Team	s.t.
7	Alejandro Valverde Belmonte	Movistar Team	s.t.
8	Jonathan Castroviejo Nicolás	Movistar Team	s.t.
9	Nairo Alexander Quintana Rojas	Movistar Team	s.t.
10	Rubén Plaza Molina	Movistar Team	s.t.

Tommorow is first Hilly stage. We will find out who has best legs.
Seeya tommorow

Rui

good luck in spain

krisa: Thank you

Rollin is only borrowing the leaders jersey

Good thing you lost that jersey, now you don't have to control the hilly race