@VoetsT : Yes - perfect first day – no time gaps though so need to stay sharp.
@valverde321 :
Thanks
- Regarding the balance of Froome/Kwiat must be form, Kwiat getting ready for spring season, where Froome would like to peak in Giro or maybe even later, compared to what he should be able to do, 8th is very bad.
– fog is nice and makes fun img’s
Vuelta a Andalucia – Ruta Del Sol (2 HC) 20/2 – 24/2 2019
Stage 2. Otura - La Guardia de Jaén 137.1 km
The stage start in Otura, from there heading north up to the outskirts of Jaen city, passing several hard climbs in the Cordillera Bética mountain range, before turning east for La Guardia de Jaén. After we have reached La Guardia de Jaén we are finishing with the short but very steep climb up to Alto de Allanadas near Ermita de San Sebastián chapel.
The stage is categorized as semi-mountain stage, but with the many climbing kilometres and the very hard summit finish, may well favour the true climbers over the heavier riders.
La Guardia de Jaén is located about 10 kilometers from Jaén, where La Guardia stream flows creating a fertile meadow. An important historical location, originally an Iberian Oppidum after Roman conquest referred to as Mentesa Bastia and during the Muslim rule called Mantisa, in this period the castle was built maybe over an existing fortification.
Top 5 media favorites:
Chris Froome - Mikel Landa - Alejandro Valverde
Rigoberto Uran - George Bennett
The Castle of La Guardia de Jaén is one of the first known Muslim fortification in Spain dated to 7th century, the existing ruin was transformed into a stately home in the 15th-16th centuries, after it lost its military value
Race
Km: 64
We get another day with lots of early activity, many attacks from the peloton in the early kilometers of the race, Jesus Ezquerra (Burgos – BH) opens for the first group of five and behind them another group of four getting close and several other groups further down the road.
It all ends up in an eleven rider group passing the early cat.3 climb, Jesus Ezquerra Burgos, Alvaro Cuadros (Caja Rural), Txomin Juaristi and Diego Lopez (Euskadi), José Daniel Viejo (Euskadi–Murias), José Antonio García (Kometa), Carlos Barbero and Jaime Castrillo (Movistar) Matteo Fabbro (Katusha), Rafael Reis and Samuel Caldeira (W52).
Rafael Reis wins the early KoM.
Right after the KoM was passed by the peloton we saw a brutal crash, every Astana rider went down except Bohórquez sitting in front of the crash and Villella caught behind it. All in all 69 riders down and as a consequence all quickly rejoined. Impossible to get an idea of how many riders might be crippled it this point.
The breakaway builds a lead of 3’30”, but over the less undulated section between the first two climbs it shrinks to under two minutes.
Right after the 2nd KoM another crash in the bunch, Pello Bilbao down along with three other Astana riders, also Tao Geoghegan Hart (Sky), Diego Ulissi and Valerio Conti (UAE) amongst the riders on the tarmac.
Ion Izagirre now isolated only with Hernando Bohórquez.
Downhill at high speed, Pello Bilbao’s wheel hit another riders equipment and he is aiming directly for the tarmac
Km: 4
Matteo Fabbro, Txomin Juaristi, José Daniel Viejo and Alvaro Cuadros shared the remaining KoM points almost equally, none of them able to reach the 18 points Rémy Mertz took yesterday, he will still lead that competition.
We now get reports that Andreas Schillinger (BORA) is not looking good after a crash, but he continues.
On the uncategorised climb up to La Guardia de Jaén the breakaway was over with a little less than 10 km left, we get an immediately attack from Peter Kennaugh but it was closed down by Sky.
When we reach the very steep and narrow road up to Ermita de San Sebastián Chapel, we got 19 riders left in the favourite group, with most prominent victim at this point Michael Woods at 1’25” sitting with the ruins of the breakaway,
Jack Haig (Mitchelton-Scott) attacks.
Most see 25 year old Jack Haig as the next top GC riders from Australia, to take over for Richie Porte, his only win was a stage in Tour de Pologne 2017, but he has shown that he can climb, recently as support for Simon Yates Vuelta España win last season
Km: 1
Haig gets caught by aggressive riding from Michal Kwiatkowski and Alejandro Valverde, in the process the leading group reduced to 12, besides the three mentioned it is Ion Izagirre (Astana) Peter Kennaugh (BORA) Tim Wellens (Lotto Soudal) Mikel Landa (Movistar) Laurens De Plus and George Bennett (Jumbo) Chris Froome and David De la Cruz (Sky) Rui Alberto Costa (UAE) 2 km left
Alejandro Valverde keeps the hard pressure, sucking the energy out of those trying to keep up. The group now exploded into smaller sections.
First under the red kite Valverde in front of Kwiatkowski and Haig, about 100 meters behind them Landa, Costa and Wellens. Another 200 meters further back Izagirre.
The next group is Froome, De la Cruz and De Plus more than a minute behind.
Alejandro Valverde opened the season very strong winning Tour Down Under, and it seems that his form it still perfect, very few able to follow him on the short steep climb to Alto de Allanadas: 2.95 km - 378 height meters - 12.8 % avg
Km 0
Jack Haig explodes, totally drained by attempting to follow Valverde’s punishing tempo.
Valverde wins the stage gaining 8” on Michal Kwiatkowski and 28” on teammate Mikel Landa. Jack Haig was just able to hold of Tim Wellens and Rui Alberto Costa.
Ion Izagirre comes in as 7th at 1’40” losing another 49” to the group in front of him, the order will also reflect top 7 in GC.
Bookmaker favourite Chris Froome 9th in the next group at 2’10”
Alejandro Valverde did not participate in Ruta Del Sol last season. 2017 he won the race in front of Alberto Contador and Thibaut Pinot. He also won the first stage and the points classification with podiums at the first three stages.
Astana Pro Team
Was unlucky to lose Pello Bilbao to a crash.
With a GC goal of a top 5 or better the result was below our hope and expectations
Vuelta a Andalucia – Ruta Del Sol (2 HC) 20/2 – 24/2 2019
Stage 3. Mancha Real - Herrera 153.9 km
The stage starts in Mancha Real about 12 km northeast of where we finished yesterday.
From there we travel first west passing Jaén until we get to Torredonjimeno where we turn south heading for Priego de Córdoba. In Priego de Córdoba turning west again passing two rather easy climbs in Parque Natural de las Sierras Subbéticas, before we reach the final flat 45 km leading up to the finish in Herrera.
The stage is quite easy and we must expect a typical mass sprint finish.
Archaeological remains indicate settlements in the end of the Bronze Age and also Iberians and Romans seem to have had at least small settlements in what is now Herrera.
Little is known about the area under Muslim rule, existence of a later Herrera as a village/town was founded in the early 1600’s. From 1900 onwards the population have been 5000-7000 people.
Top 5 media favorites:
Marco Haller - Jens Debusschere - Daniel Oss
Vyacheslav Kuznetsov - Christopher Lawless
Archaeological excavation have revealed a Roman bath in Herrera, with several mosaics here from the floor
Race
Km: 122
Jetse Bol (Burgos) opens the stage, with 10 points in the KoM not too far back in that competition. A group of 7 riders starts a pursuit, between them Rafael Reis (W52) with 12 KoM points.
After about 15 km races the two groups melt together. Another 6 km and we see another acceleration from the peloton Artyom Zakharov (Astana), will take him 12 km alone on the roads before he make contact, to finalize what is to be todays breakaway.
It is clouded and we will see some showers coming and going and also a rapidly shifting wind-speed sometimes up to 20 km/h.
Jetse Bol opens the stage, the 29 years old Dutch rider best result was winning Olympia's Tour three times 2009/2011/2015, his best result in high level races was 10th in Vuelta a Burgos 2017
Km: 26
The distance was maxed out at 3’41, from there the peloton start to reduce the gap little by little, the break increase again over the first KoM passing with 3’24. César Fonte takes the 1st KoM in front of Rafael Reis and Jetse Bol.
Between the KoM’s Dzmitry Zhyhunou (Euskadi) and Rafael Reis have to let go and never get back, Jetse Bol takes the 2nd KoM in front of Ryan Anderson (Rally) and Sam Bewley (Mitchelton).
The peloton can now see the breakaway sometimes with a distance of 1’19”, Sam Bewley with a hard acceleration from the breakaway opens a sizeable gap, but it is from very far out.
31 years old Australian Sam Bewley have been with Mitchelton since 2012, even though he has no professional wins he is a trusted domestic riding 7 grand tour with the team
600 meters
Bewley reeled back into the breakaway, they continue to test each other Jetse Bol now with a small gap to the others.
Under the 10 km banner we also get an attack form the peloton, it is Txomin Juaristi (Fundación Euskadi) he already got 33” on the peloton, at this point the breakaway has 1’08.
Jetse Bol never got away from the peloton, and Jetse Bol was reeled in too.
The breakaway has about 20” under the red kit, it is Astana’s Artyom Zakharov opening the sprint from about 800 meters, with just 600 meters left for him he still leads and it does look like the winner will be from the breakaway.
27 years old Kazakh Artyom Zakharov started his career at Vino 4ever, Astana’s development team in 2014, from February 2016 promoted to the World Tour team
Km 0
Artyom Zakharov completely destroys his breakaway companions taking a clear win in Herrera.
Ryan Anderson (Rally UHC) 2nd and Sam Bewley (Mitchelton) 3rd
Best from the peloton Ion Izagirre 6th in front of Carlos Barbero 7th. 95 riders got the same time as the vinner.
This was clearly Artyom Zakharov best result ever, besides Kazakhstan National RR 2017, his only win.
Astana Pro Team
Artyom normaly not the strongest rider in that break, but he played his card well, not doing more than necessary, patiently making others close the small gaps. Perfect day for us after we lost time yesterday
Lovely to see Valverde winning on Stage 2, but what a win for the team on Stage 3. Looks like the early sprint worked for him, but he probably had to go early with the threat of the peloton coming.
valverde321 wrote:
Lovely to see Valverde winning on Stage 2, but what a win for the team on Stage 3. Looks like the early sprint worked for him, but he probably had to go early with the threat of the peloton coming.
Honestly did not realize that the peloton was that close, but he had done some nice wheel-sucking while the best competitors did failed attacks, so he came under the kite with almost full “sprinter energy”.
Vuelta a Andalucia – Ruta Del Sol (2 HC) 20/2 – 24/2 2019
Stage 4. Sevilla - Alcalá de los Gazules 190.3 km
The stage starts in Sevilla from there southeast heading for two hard climbs in Sierra de Grazalema Natural Park, Puerto de las Palomas and Puerto del Boyar, both comming up mid stage. From there a long dangerous descent and a relative flat section leading up to the finish in Alcalá de los Gazules.
The long climb to Puerto de los Acebuches may or may not reduce the bunce to a smaller favourite group depending on how hard it is raced, we also got a few climbs within the last 20 km able to do some damage, and the sharp uphill finish is not favouring the purest sprinters, we must expect a puncher/sprinter or pure puncher win.
The origins of Seville dates to 9th-7th century BC founded either by the local Tartessian culture or by Phoenicians. After the discovery of America Seville became the economic center of the Spain. Today Seville is the capital of Andalusia and the fourth largest city in Spain.
Top 5 media favorites:
Alejandro Valverde - Mikel Landa - Jelle Vanendert
Michal Kwiatkowski - Michael Woods
The Treasure of El Carambolo, was found about 3km west of Seville, dated to 7th-5th centuries B.C., produced by Phoenicians the set is 21 pieces of 24 carat gold, with a total weight of 2.95 kg
Race
Km: 91
Jesus Ezquerra (Burgos – BH) opens the stage in front of Rafael Reis (W52) Nigel Ellsay (Rally) and Andreas Schillinge (BORA). Soon several other groups attack from the peloton and the bunch not willing to put up a hard pursuit, risking to burn up the domestics before the hard climbs coming later.
It ends with a 17 rider strong breakaway, to mention the most interesting we got climber and rouleur Alarcón (W52) GC 28th, as mentioned Reis (W52) with 16 KoM points, rouleur Barthe (Euskadi – Murias), rouleur Pöstlberger (BORA), puncher Floris De Tier (Jumbo) and climber/puncher Mcnulty (Rally).
Near the early sprint they got over 5 minutes, but when the reach the foot on the cat.1 it is down to 2’39”
28 years old Spanish Jesus Ezquerra won a stage in Volta a Portugal 2016, his best result to date
Km: 82
In the peloton Tomasz Marczynski (Lotto Soudal) pulling, pace is hard for the weaker riders, the group is quickly reduced to 70 riders. Astana loses Artyom Zakharov, the exceptional result he had yesterday takes its toll.
Up in the front group we get an attack by Txomin Juaristi (Fundación Euskadi) with David Gonzalez (Caja Rural) at wheel, they were reeled in by Floris De Tier (Jumbo)
Floris De Tier continues his hard pace, noone able to follow and he rides away alone, at 32” Mcnulty, Alarcón and Gonzalez, next group at 1’06, 1 km to the top.
Floris De Tier wins at Puerto de las Palomas, Alarcón 2nd now at just 16”, Mcnulty 3rd at 32”
Floris De Tier, born 1992 in Gavere, East Flanders, Belgium, have never won a race but he has shown some fine potential notably two top 5’s in Vuelta a España both on hard routes
3 km
Alarcón and Mcnulty easily catch up to De Tier who seems to have used too much at Puerto de las Palomas, Alarcón takes the cat.3 in front of Mcnulty and they drop De Tier who loses almost a minute and get caught by Madrazo, Pöstlberger and Gonzalez now the only six riders in front of the bunch. De Tier soon explodes and falls back to the bunch.
Alarcón and Mcnulty keeps up a good fight to hold of the pursuit, reaching the rather tough hill with 20 km to the line they got 1’54”, but the fight for position leading up to the final uphill finish further up the pace in the 44 man strong favourite group, with just 3.1 km left it was over for the duo.
Alarcón and Mcnulty was the last survivors from the breakaway, Raúl Alarcón has 12 professional win, for Mcnulty this could have been his first
Km 0
36 riders make it to the final short cobbled climb leading up the finish line, it ends in double victory by Lotto Soudal, Tim Wellens in front of Jelle Vanendert. With this result Tim Wellens passed Jack Haig for 4th in GC.
Rigoberto Uran 3rd in front of Alejandro Valverde
This was 27 years old Belgian Tim Wellens first season win, his latest was the GC of Tour de Wallonie last season
Astana Pro Team
Jonas Gregaard Wilsly was down in a crash even before the mountains, he never got back but he is fine just needs some rest.
Ion Izagirre came in as 8th, we expected something like that, and hope he may improve a little in GC tomorrow.
Vuelta a Andalucia – Ruta Del Sol (2 HC) 20/2 – 24/2 2019
Stage 5 Barbate - Barbate ITT 14.2 km
Today the final stage of Vuelta a Andalucia – Ruta Del Sol, an 14.2 km long ITT with start and finish in Barbate, we start outside Cafe - Bar La Tasquita Tapas Y Raciones, and from there a circular route in the countryside west of the town, finishing by the Marina.
The rout is just a bit undulated, favouring the tempo rider with a little climbing ability.
Salt is known to have been extracted for the salting of the fish from the Barbate marshes since Pre-Roman times. The town of Baesippo mentioned by different roman writers is likely to be the origin of Barbate, at the time an important export centre and fish sauce to Rome.
Top 5 media favorites:
Michal Kwiatkowski - Jonathan Castroviejo - Damien Howson
Daniel Oss - Chris Froome
Wild Barbate by Begoña Lafuente, Acrylic and Collage on Canvas
Race
Astana’s Davide Villella set and early best time 19’34, to show that some climbing is very helpful to make a result today, not a tempo rider.
The first rider to set a time below 19 minutes was Sam Bewley (Mitchelton) 18’52”
The first rider to sit in the hot seat for a longer period was media favourite Daniel Oss (BORA) 18’36”, he was beaten by Reto Hollenstein (Katusha) setting a time just 1/10 of seconds faster, and sitting in the hot-seat even longer that Oss.
Swiss Reto Hollenstein made it to top 10 in World Championships - ITT 2016
New best media favourite Jonathan Castroviejo (Sky) 18’27”
Now to the last 10 riders:
GC 10th at 2’20” Laurens De Plus (Jumbo) 18’34”
Media favourite Chris Froome (Sky), GC 9th at 2’20” with new best 18'17”
Last season Chris Froome came 11th in the ITT of Vuelta a Andalucia, seems to be in better form this time
GC 8th at 2’16” Rigoberto Uran (Education First) 18’50”
GC 7th at 1’44” Ion Izagirre (Astana) 18’49”
GC 6th at 55” Rui Alberto Costa (UAE) 18’46”
GC 5th at 51” Jack Haig (Mitchelton) 19’16’” that was quite a bad time he will lose top 5 to Costa
GC 4th at 45” Tim Wellens (Lotto Soudal) 18’50”
GC 3rd at 34” Mikel Landa (Movistar) 18’57”
CG 2nd at 2” Michal Kwiatkowski (Sky) 18’35”
Race leader Alejandro Valverde (Movistar) comes in with 18’27” the third best time and more than enough the be the overall winner of Vuelta a Andalucia.
At stage level Chris Froome won in front of Jonathan Castroviejo and Alejandro Valverde
At GC level Alejandro Valverde in front of Michal Kwiatkowski and Mikel Landa
After this Alejandro Valverde has already got 4 season wins, two race wins and two stages, we must expect Sky to be very disappointed would expect Kwiatkowski to be able to take 2“ on Valverde in this situation
Astana Pro Team
With hopes of a podium and top 5 as realistic target, we are generally disappointed with the result, not even making it to top ten in the TT just add to that.
Artyom Zakharov beautiful win at stage three was our only joy and a fine one indeed
