Kind of hoped Boswell would take this one for the break with the big gap he had, but it seems almost impossible for breaks to make it on mountain stages in GTs. Nibali's gap on contador is though now. 3 1/2 more minutes lost in just one climb. That means Martin and Quintana are a threat again for the second spot.
It's incredible how anonymous we are being here, Di Gregorio was great 2/3 GTs last year and this time around he's been absolutely crap at all times. Oh well congrats Shonak, glad to see Contador is still on his bike.
Martin vs Contador for the KoM. The latter has the GC win in the bag so I hope he lets the other classification for us. Also hoping he can continue his form to get that second place but I'll take a podium place.
Amazing, great tactical ride by Contador who spent his energy well and put in the nail in the coffin now. I don't want to jinx anything but it looks very good with 2 mt stages left.
Additionally the fight for the podium is still wide open between three riders. Quintana has the recovery to make magic in the last two stages, Daniel martin is definitely flying on a high form, whilst Nibali has shown the first bad day in two years. Majka seems to be out of the game tho and Betancur definitely too far down the ladder for a repeat of his podium.
"It’s a little bit scary when Contador attacks." - Tommy V
Two wins for the break. Kind of weird they are only getting through on flat stages in GT.
I feel very sorry for Peugeot with Martin's timeloss. It finally seemed like another rider could fight with the 82 MO riders for podium places in a GT.
Our weak team had no chance of chasing down the break so Cav misses out on a shot at the points competition, still third is not bad if it stays that way.
I can't be happy climbing on the podium like this really...shame for Marco, who still has a great Tour though and will finish between somewhere between 3-5 and has a successful Tour...
to the breakaways: In terms of giving the breakaway advantages PCM doesn't decide between flat, hilly or mountain stages - and as it's much easier to win time on the break on mountain stages breaks are more likely to happen on flat stages...
In the end quite a dominant win for Contador. Nibali just hadn't it in him to keep up with him especially in the last week. I was lucky Quintana didn't get the 2nd place in the end, in the last few stages he was stronger than Vincenzo. The points gained make Contador the new WT rankings leader and put Saeco ahead of Alitalia.
What amazes me most about this Vuelta is that we managed to score more than 100 points. Still annoyed that we didn't join a single successful break, because any rider on our team with an IQ over 8 could've seen that those breaks on the flat succeeded very often.
