This year’s Vuelta starts in Vilanova de Arousa and will prove to be an spectacular one thanks to the starting podium for only team time trial in this year’s Vuelta.



A clear favorite for the TTT isn’t found easily, teams like Movistar, Garmin and Belkin are able to finish good today but RadioShack, Orica and Euskaltel winning wouldn’t be a stretch either. Two things are for certain. Predicting the winner is almost impossible and it won’t be Team De Rijke as they are only here for the sake of being here.

The Team that opens the team time trial is perhaps the biggest favorite today with Dennis, Navardauskas, Vande Velde, Danielson and Zabriskie at the starting line. Also joining them is Irishman Daniel Martin, who’s going for either a good General or good stage results. They set the first time at 34’53�

The team without defending champion Alberto Contador, now hopes that either Rafal Majka or Nicolas Roche can save the day. if they can’t, it will be hard to get results that are acceptable for the team as Cantwell is the only one that can handle himself in a sprint. They end up with 35’44�

The guys from The Netherlands aren’t here too joke around, shown clearly when the passed the boys from De Rijke that are here for that exact reason. They’ll rely on Luis Leon Sánchez, Ten Dam, Cristobal Riquelme and Boom to score points. They aren’t able to beat Garmin however, they lose 8 seconds on them. 35’01�

The 2012 Vuelta winner is absent but luckily the 2011 winner is. Juan Josè Cobo isn’t Movistar’s man for the general classification. The 2009 winner has that role. Alejandro Valverde is charged with getting a podium or possible even better from the Movistar directives. They start with 35’22�. provisionally 3rd

The questions that everyone breathing AG2R, will the team ride for a potential GC placing Riblon/Gadret or are they free to chase their own fortune in the stages. Only time will tell. Time also tells that they achieve provisionally 5th with 35’54�

Jakob Fuglsang gets his chance to be Astana’s leader for once but the lack of support can cost him dearly in his GT leader debut. They put up the slowest time so far with 35’55�

Joaquim Rodriguez will have the honor of having the number 1 on his back and is seen as the main rival to finally take his first Grand Tour victory. If he falls however they still have a back-up plan in Daniel Moreno. They finish in 4th provisional with 35’37�

With self-proclaimed top favorite Chris Horner. RadioShack is confident that he will win the Vuelta. However the support is really lacking in comparison with Movistar, Katusha or Euskaltel. They take 4th place from Katusha by 12 seconds 35’25

Team Cannondale, or Team Peter Sagan as they are known between some general managers are here without their superstar. They’ll instead rely on Moser and De Marchi to get the points home in this race. 35’43� is their time. Currently 6th

The French FDJ team is filled with stage hunters. Sandy Casar and Pierrick Fédrigo are the ones that should do this. Keep an eye on them in the third week. They surprise with 8th time provisionally. 35’46�

The Vuelta is the MTN’s only Grand Tour this year and they hope to shine. With riders like Ciolek and Guido they should mix it up in the sprints and we’ll see them plenty enough in breakaways for sure. They lose over a minute on Garmin today. 36’09

The current world champion in the Team Time Trial didn’t bring their greatest team combination for the discipline but with current world champion in the individual time trial, they can’t be seen as chanceless. However looking at their time of 36’01�

The attackers from Caja Rural only hope on any good results seems to lie on Txurruka shoulders. Any day without any of them in a break is a bad day in their book. 35’01�

After a horrible Giro in which they scored no points, they redeemed themselves in the Tour. Lotto now hope that Jurgen Van den Broeck is able to continue that line. Griepel is absent so the sprints will be handled by Jurgen Roelandts most likely. The time they set seems to be from their Giro time as they set the same time as MTN 36’09� meaing 14th place

Some people that think they are funny have already reserved the 11th place on every stage and final GC for someone from BMC. However without a real leader in the team things might get frustrating in the BMC headquarters. The time they set isn’t to be happy about.

Team Sky with Chris Froome will be the rider and team to beat. Having won the Tour over a month ago, is he fresh enough to do it again in the Vuelta. The team support is here too but it’s hard to see a wolf in sheep cloth. Maybe the biggest thread to Froome is within his own team. I’m sure that Úran wouldn’t mind taking the win himself. They fail to get in the top 10 however as they finish 11th with 35’58�

Lampre is here with one goal: Getting noticed and the best guy to do it is most likely Serpa. They do however have one of the best looking national championships jersey with Durasek . Even despite having the national champion they are take last place with some distance, 20 seconds slower than MTN and Lotto 36’29�

Self proclaimed “everybody favorite team�, Team NetApp will be relying on Konig and Birt. If they fail, then it’s going to be a long three weeks for the boys in blue. They finish in provisional 17th 36’10�

The Basque team with Samuel Sánchez and Igor Anton within its ranks is here to show something after a disastrous Tour de France. Hopefully they have more luck in their native country. It starts well by finishing 5th today with 35’35�

Argos have done what they’ve always done. With a sprinter as leader to a grand tour, this time it’s John Degenkolb with the honours although his train is a bit lackluster. Perhaps more of an eye catcher will be Oriste Ghita from Pakistan. They just miss out on a top 10 by setting 35’55� in 12th

Following Argos, we have the final team of today: Orica GreenEDGE, that has with Michel Matthews the main competitor against Argos’s Degenkolb. Also have an eye out of Pieter Weening, he’ll surprise the world if he’s not found in a breakaway over the course of these three weeks. They set the 8th place for today with 35’43�


They were the first team to start and they had a long day in the hot-seat in store for them but in the end it’s all worth it. Team Garmin-Sharp wins the team time trial and Rohan Dennis will be wearing the red jersey tomorrow.

Rank	Team	Time
1	Garmin - Sharp	34'53
2	Belkin Pro Cycling Team	+ 8
3	Movistar Team	+ 29
4	RadioShack - Leopard	+ 32
5	Euskaltel - Euskadi	+ 42
6	Katusha Team	+ 44
7	Cannondale Pro Cycling	+ 50
8	Orica - GreenEdge	s.t.
9	Team Saxo - Tinkoff	s.t.
10	FDJ.fr	+ 53

Rank	Name	Team	Time
1	Rohan Dennis	Garmin - Sharp	34'53

Rank	Name	Team	General Time
1	Rohan Dennis	Garmin - Sharp	34'53 (1)
2	Ramunas Navardauskas	Garmin - Sharp	+ 0 (2)

Welcome to the second stage of this year’s Vuelta and it’s the first of 10 summit finishes in the Vuelta this year. Garmin looks secure in their red jersey, with Daniel Martin in 2nd place in the GC, he looks as the main contender to take the jersey over from Rohan Dennis, if he isn’t able to stay with the pack. Winning today’s stage doesn’t mean the red jersey as the biggest favorites: Chris Froome (Sky), Joaquím Rodríguez (Katusha) and Alejandro Valverde (Movistar) are over half a minute behind






The riders waste no time to start a breakaway. Tom Dumoulin (Argos) and Tiralongo (Astana) are the first to attack, Casar (FDJ) and De Marchi (Cannondale) follow. They weren’t allowed to get far. Martinez (Euskaltel )and Piedra (Caja Rural) were the next riders to attack after the group was pulled back. Didn’t get much room either. The real break of the day was made when Voigt (RadioShack) attacked and Silin (Astana) followed. Txurruka (Caja Rural) joined them later.


the decisive attack

Despite the finish providing enough points to lead the mountain classification, Txurruka is going hard for the intermediate mountain sprint. He wins easily against Silin and Voigt. The three have a gap of 5 minutes against the peloton.


the mountain sprint

While Txurruka won the mountain sprint, Voigt wins both intermediate sprints, while the gap goes back to 3 minutes. This is due to AG2R making the pace, assisted by Garmin.


the result of both intermediate sprints

At the start of the climb the gap was down to just under a minute and they have started to make attacks to go solo. Surely the break is over now. It’s time for the riders that want to win the stage to make a move. Birt (NetApp) and Fédrigo (FDJ) have started to move to the front. However it was Valverde (Movistar) to make the first move.


the first move is made

Majka (Saxo) and Fuglsang (Astana) try to join Valverde but they lack the strength to close the gap. Horner (RadioShack) was the next to try and close the gap to Valverde but only successes to get up to Group Majka. Meanwhile Froome (Sky) has attacked as well.


Horner closes the gap with Group Majka while Froome attacks in the background

Valverde now has a 1 minute gap to group Froome, König (NetApp) and Owniak (BMC) have also made a gap to the peloton but that was almost instantly vaporized when Rodriguez attacked with 1.8 km to go. Úran is following


the 3rd group currently with Purito, Owniak, König and Úran

However all of this happened why behind Alejandro Valverde. He quickly gained a 2 minute gap on the pack. A minute later, Fuglsang beat Froome for 2nd place. Horner is 4th.


Valverde, the stage winner of Stage 2

The rest of the top 10 came in as separate groups, Owniak takes 6th, Urán 7th, Rodriguez 8th, König 9th and Martin 10th. Daniel Moreno set the peloton’s time at 2,5 minutes behind Valverde. Meaning that Dennis loses his jersey to Valverde.


the third group of riders finishing

Valverde is the new leader and Horner is now 2nd. Daniel Martin drops to 3rd place. Fuglsang is now 4th. Froome moves over a 100 places and is now 5th. Majka is 6th, then we got 3 guys of Garmin. Dennis, Stetina and Navardauskas. 10th place is now for Rodriguez.


the victory ceremony

Rank	Name	Team	Time
1	Alejandro Valverde	Movistar Team	4h00'39
2	Jakob Fuglsang	Astana Pro Team	+ 1'11
3	Chris Froome	Sky Procycling	s.t.
4	Chris Horner	RadioShack - Leopard	s.t.
5	Rafal Majka	Team Saxo - Tinkoff	+ 1'22
6	Damian Owniak	BMC Racing Team	+ 1'36
7	Rigoberto Urán	Sky Procycling	s.t.
8	Joaquím Rodríguez	Katusha Team	s.t.
9	Leopold König	Team NetApp - Endura	+ 1'52
10	Daniel Martin	Garmin - Sharp	+ 2'01

Rank	Name	Team	Time
1	Alejandro Valverde	Movistar Team	4h35'51
2	Chris Horner	RadioShack - Leopard	+ 1'24
3	Daniel Martin	Garmin - Sharp	+ 1'42
4	Jakob Fuglsang	Astana Pro Team	+ 1'48
5	Chris Froome	Sky Procycling	+ 1'53
6	Rafal Majka	Team Saxo - Tinkoff	+ 1'54
7	Rohan Dennis	Garmin - Sharp	+ 2'00
8	Peter Stetina	Garmin - Sharp	s.t.
9	Ramunas Navardauskas	Garmin - Sharp	s.t.
10	Joaquím Rodríguez	Katusha Team	+ 2'01

Rank	Name	Team	Points
1	Alejandro Valverde	Movistar Team	25
2	Jakob Fuglsang	Astana Pro Team	20
3	Chris Froome	Sky Procycling	16
4	Chris Horner	RadioShack - Leopard	14
5	Rafal Majka	Team Saxo - Tinkoff	12

Rank	Name	Team	Mountain
1	Alejandro Valverde	Movistar Team	10
2	Jakob Fuglsang	Astana Pro Team	6
3	Chris Froome	Sky Procycling	4

Rank	Team	Time	General Time
1	Movistar Team	12h06'35	12h41'57 (1)
2	Sky Procycling	+ 28	+ 1'04 (2)
3	Katusha Team	+ 1'36	+ 1'51 (4)

Rank	Name	Team	Time	General Time
1	Rafal Majka	Team Saxo - Tinkoff	4h02'01	4h37'45 (1)
2	Damian Owniak	BMC Racing Team	+ 14	+ 37 (5)
3	Jorge Cristobal Riquelme	Belkin Pro Cycling Team	+ 57	+ 19 (4)