Another though end climb today, which comes into two parts, the climb before the final climb isn’t easy as well. Everything before the two climbs is fairly easy and shouldn’t be a problem. Another breakaway win isn’t likely due to the end climbs.




The breakaway consistent of Astarloza (Euskaltel), Brambilla (Omega Pharma), De Marchi (Cannondale), Tiralongo (Astana). Santaromita (BMC) and Voigt (RadioShack) came a little later but also made it up to the breakaway.


a strong breakaway again in this Vuelta

The gap they got was 8,5 minutes at max but the gap was down to 4’10� when the attacks from the peloton came from Txurruka (Caja Rural), Fédrigo (FDJ), Pardilla (MTN) and Birt (NetApp) but they had trouble getting a decent gap. Most likely due to Birt presence in the group having won yesterday.


the attacks from the peloton

The breakaway has started the Alto de Monachil with an advantage of 2’04� to the group Txurruka. Which has in turn a 2’41� minute gap to the peloton where Movistar have stopped chasing and no team wants to take over. Looking at the breakaway it’s Amats Txurruka that first in the GC with an 12’47�gap to Valverde.


the peloton on strike!

The groups gained 5 minutes easily but it seems the peloton has been woken up by attack instead of one team pacing. König and Majka are followed by Sánchez, Ghita, Weening, Riblon, Caruso, Horner, Froome, Owniak, Valverde and Rodriguez.


the peloton

This results into a separate group including 22 riders including from Valverde and Intxausti (Movistar), Moreno and Rodríguez (Katusha), Hintermuller (MTN), Urán and Froome (Sky), Riblon (AG2R), Weening (Orica), Horner (RadioShack), König (NetApp), Martin (Garmin), Ghita (Argos), Sánchez and Verdugo (Euskaltel), Caruso (Cannondale), Fuglsang (Astana), Majka and Roche (Saxo Bank), Owniak (BMC), Van den Broeck (Lotto), Ten Dam (Belkin). The gap the the front has been reduced to 2’54� where Santaromita has dropped Brambilla and Fédrigo attack they got clear just under the mountain sprint.



the breakaway in the background

Rodríguez has abandoned his renown punchy skills to go on his own. A group of 6 riders with Froome, König, Horner, Hintermuller, Ghita and Sánchez are just behind them. A second group that has Riblon, Ten Dam, Owniak and Caruso behind them. Valverde doesn’t look good again. he losing 1’31� on Rodriguez. In the meantime Santaromita (BMC) has a 48 seconds gap over Voigt, Brambilla, Birt, Fédrigo and Asterloza



Santaromita has been caught by Birt, Voigt and Brambilla. Fédrigo and Asterloza have been dropped but Rodriguez is still busy picking up the breakaway riders. Froome, Horner, König are 1’20� behind Rodriguez and Hintermuller is 15 seconds behind them. Valverde is back at 3 minutes


riders all over the place

Birt has the taste for victory again as he tries to go solo again. he doesn’t fancy a sprint against Voigt, Santaromita and Brambilla.



With 2 km to go this is the current situation



Horner can’t keep up with Froome’s pace as he’s looking to close time on Rodriguez.



Froome has closed the gap to Rodriguez and has left Horner behind. König is further up the road and Hintermuller is also infront of Ghita, Sánchez and Fuglsang. Valverde and Urán have split from the group they were in but are still 4 minute behind Rodriguez and Froome.



That all doesn’t matter to Birt now. He takes another stage win infront of Jens Voigt who get’s second place todat



Froome edges out Rodriguez in the sprint for third. Santaromita holds Horner of for 5th.



König gets 7th place while Brambilla and Fédrigo race for 8th and 9th.



Hintermuller takes the final top 10 spot



Valverde catches up to Ghita, Sánchez and Fuglsang but are outside the top 10 for today



After a domination first week, people thought that Valverde would easily win the Vuelta but in two days he has lost his lead. Joaquim Rodríguez is the new race leader. Froome is now 2nd but only 14 seconds back. Horner is 3rd. Valverde has dropped to 4th place. Urán is still in 5th place and Martin manages to save his 6th place while Fuglsang, Sánchez, Intxausti and Ghita take advantage of the bad day of Van den Broeck who drops into 13th.


he did it again

Rank	Name	Team	Time
1	Mitchell Birt	Team NetApp - Endura	4h46'29
2	Jens Voigt	RadioShack - Leopard	+ 44
3	Chris Froome	Sky Procycling	+ 1'06
4	Joaquím Rodríguez	Katusha Team	+ 1'18
5	Ivan Santaromita	BMC Racing Team	+ 1'41
6	Chris Horner	RadioShack - Leopard	s.t.
7	Leopold König	Team NetApp - Endura	+ 2'42
8	Gianluca Brambilla	Omega Pharma - Quick•Step Cycling Team	+ 3'11
9	Pierrick Fédrigo	FDJ.fr	+ 3'24
10	Josef Hintermuller	MTN - Qhubeka	+ 4'00

Rank	Name	Team	Time
1	Joaquím Rodríguez	Katusha Team	39h28'22
2	Chris Froome	Sky Procycling	+ 14
3	Chris Horner	RadioShack - Leopard	+ 1'08
4	Alejandro Valverde	Movistar Team	+ 1'32
5	Rigoberto Urán	Sky Procycling	+ 3'42
6	Daniel Martin	Garmin - Sharp	+ 6'20
7	Jakob Fuglsang	Astana Pro Team	+ 6'46
8	Samuel Sánchez	Euskaltel - Euskadi	+ 7'40
9	Beñat Intxausti	Movistar Team	+ 7'43
10	Oreste Ghita	Team Argos - Shimano	+ 8'04

Rank	Name	Team	Points	General
1	Joaquím Rodríguez	Katusha Team	14	123
2	Alejandro Valverde	Movistar Team	0	122
3	Rigoberto Urán	Sky Procycling	2	87
4	Chris Froome	Sky Procycling	16	83
5	Daniel Martin	Garmin - Sharp	0	56

Rank	Name	Team	Mountain	General
1	Alejandro Valverde	Movistar Team	0	20
2	Chris Froome	Sky Procycling	4	14
3	Ivan Santaromita	BMC Racing Team	7	12
4	Gianluca Brambilla	Omega Pharma - Quick•Step Cycling Team	10	12
5	Jens Voigt	RadioShack - Leopard	10	11

Rank	Team	Time	General Time
1	Sky Procycling	14h36'26	117h35'26 (1)
2	Euskaltel - Euskadi	+ 2'38	+ 9'46 (3)
3	BMC Racing Team	+ 3'10	+ 15'55 (4)
4	RadioShack - Leopard	+ 3'45	+ 19'50 (6)
5	Movistar Team	+ 4'10	+ 6'14 (2)

Rank	Name	Team	Time	General Time
1	Mitchell Birt	Team NetApp - Endura	4h46'29	+ 10'35 (6)
2	Josef Hintermuller	MTN - Qhubeka	+ 4'00	+ 2'50 (4)
3	Oreste Ghita	Team Argos - Shimano	+ 4'35	39h36'26 (1)
4	Rafal Majka	Team Saxo - Tinkoff	+ 5'54	+ 2'39 (3)
5	Damian Owniak	BMC Racing Team	s.t.	+ 1'57 (2)