in the next three days, the Vuelta will be set up for an exciting final on the Angliru. But that’s the penultimate stage and this is only the start of the second week. 4 climbs including the summit finish. A breakaway maybe?




The breakaway is formed with stages. The first riders that started where Moreno (Movistar), Verdugo (Euskaltel), Silin (Astana) made the first escape. The second escape were Morabito (BMC) and Bouet (AG2R). Geniez was alone when he joined up with the breakaway. Stetina (Garmin) reacted to Sánchez (Belkin) making it up the breakaway. Mountain jersey wearer Moreno Moser (Cannondale) was the last rider to made it up the breakaway.


the breakaway with one rider looking for a jersey

At the summit of the Port de Envalira, the first climb of today point the breakaway had a 9,5 minute gap to the peloton. In the breakaway, Moser had a secondary mission. He’s just 2 points behind Valverde. The others won’t easily let him gain the points however as it was Luis León Sánchez that won the climb and Silin get’s second. Moser got 3rd though which puts him 2 points over Valverde.


Sánchez is the first rider at the top

We’ve got the first 9 riders of today’s stage most likely with only 40 kilometers to go the gap is 11 minutes. This news inspired the peloton to go attacking early and we are not even close to the end.


the lead peloton group that has almost all the GC riders except Urán, Sánchez and Majka, they are a bit behind

while the breakaway has split into two groups with Bouet, Moreno, Sánchez, Silin and Geniez in the first group. The chasing group has also split up. Froome, Valverde, Rodriguez, König, Horner and Urán are in the first group. VDB, Fuglsang, Ghita and Martin are a little behind and should comeback on the downhill.



Fuglsang used the downhill to its fullest extent by trying to drop the others, it results in Ghita, Urán and Rodriguez getting a little distance between them and the others.


downhilling at its best

Meanwhile in the breakaway, Bouet has attacked. Geniez has followed. The rest are still waiting. Moser, Verdugo and Stetina haven’t got the strength to stay with the breakaway.



Nobody is able to get close to Bouet as he wins in Andorra. Geniez will get second place. Silin holds on to 3rd place. Moreno beats Morabito for 4th. Sánchez dropped before the fight for 4th and get’s 6th. Verdugo with 7th, Moser with 8th and Stetina with 9th are the final breakaway members.


we leave spain and a French team wins

What we missed in the peloton is that Froome and Valverde have together put distance between them and Rodriguez that’s accompanied by Horner. König, Fuglsang, Urán and VDB, Ghita are their separate groups. Froome started to ride his solo pace and Valverde is cracking


the points jersey is craking in the mountains

Froome pace is enough to take 10th place as Valverde doesn’t completely crack he holds on to 11th. Rodriguez loses about a minute today and loses the red jersey. Valverde looks to take 3rd place in the GC from Horner. König keeps going for that top 10 by finishing


Froome does indeed take the GC lead. He now has about a minute lead on Rodriguez (57 seconds). Valverde, who more than three minutes behind Froome, has 20 seconds on Horner for 3rd place. Urán and Ghita are locked in 5th and 6th place. Inxausti and Sánchez drop out of the top 10 and are now 11th and 12th now. König and Van den Broeck replace them in the top 10. Fuglsang takes the 7th place from Martin who drops to 10th


a French stage win that’s not in spain

Rank	Name	Team	Time
1	Maxime Bouet	AG2R La Mondiale	4h23'49
2	Alexandre Geniez	FDJ.fr	+ 52
3	Egor Silin	Astana Pro Team	+ 1'10
4	Javier Moreno	Movistar Team	+ 1'34
5	Steve Morabito	BMC Racing Team	s.t.
6	Luis León Sánchez	Belkin Pro Cycling Team	+ 2'05
7	Gorka Verdugo	Euskaltel - Euskadi	+ 3'22
8	Moreno Moser	Cannondale Pro Cycling	+ 4'10
9	Peter Stetina	Garmin - Sharp	+ 4'24
10	Chris Froome	Sky Procycling	+ 5'56
11	Alejandro Valverde	Movistar Team	+ 6'48
12	Joaquím Rodríguez	Katusha Team	+ 7'06
13	Chris Horner	RadioShack - Leopard	+ 7'21
14	Leopold König	Team NetApp - Endura	+ 9'00
15	Jakob Fuglsang	Astana Pro Team	+ 9'15
16	Rigoberto Urán	Sky Procycling	s.t.
17	Jurgen Van den Broeck	Lotto Belisol	+ 9'37
18	Oreste Ghita	Team Argos - Shimano	+ 9'45
19	Nicolas Roche	Team Saxo - Tinkoff	+ 10'52
20	Beñat Intxausti	Movistar Team	+ 11'29

Rank	Name	Team	Time
1	Chris Froome	Sky Procycling	52h21'44
2	Joaquím Rodríguez	Katusha Team	+ 57
3	Alejandro Valverde	Movistar Team	+ 3'15
4	Chris Horner	RadioShack - Leopard	+ 3'35
5	Rigoberto Urán	Sky Procycling	+ 7'57
6	Oreste Ghita	Team Argos - Shimano	+ 11'13
7	Jakob Fuglsang	Astana Pro Team	+ 11'16
8	Leopold König	Team NetApp - Endura	+ 11'46
9	Jurgen Van den Broeck	Lotto Belisol	+ 12'43
10	Daniel Martin	Garmin - Sharp	+ 13'47

Rank	Name	Team	Points	General
1	Joaquím Rodríguez	Katusha Team	4	146
2	Alejandro Valverde	Movistar Team	5	131
3	Chris Froome	Sky Procycling	6	103
4	Rigoberto Urán	Sky Procycling	0	87
5	Gerald Ciolek	MTN - Qhubeka	0	81

Rank	Name	Team	Mountain	General
1	Moreno Moser	Cannondale Pro Cycling	4	22
2	Alejandro Valverde	Movistar Team	0	20
3	Egor Silin	Astana Pro Team	16	20
4	Javier Moreno	Movistar Team	17	17
5	Maxime Bouet	AG2R La Mondiale	16	16

Rank	Team	Time	General Time
1	Movistar Team	13h31'18	156h26'40 (1)
2	AG2R La Mondiale	+ 5'15	+ 37'53 (10)
3	FDJ.fr	+ 6'07	+ 1h10'11 (13)
4	BMC Racing Team	+ 6'49	+ 19'12 (4)
5	Belkin Pro Cycling Team	+ 7'20	+ 34'22 (7)

Rank	Name	Team	Time	General Time
1	Alexandre Geniez	FDJ.fr	+ 4h24'41	+ 21'59 (9)
2	Egor Silin	Astana Pro Team	+ 4h24'59	+ 17'22 (5)
3	Moreno Moser	Cannondale Pro Cycling	+ 4h27'59	+ 21'37 (8)
4	Oreste Ghita	Team Argos - Shimano	+ 4h33'34	52h32'57 (1)
5	Rafal Majka	Team Saxo - Tinkoff	+ 4h36'22	+ 7'19 (4)

One of the hardest stages in the Vuelta, with 4 climbs and a relatively easy summit finish compared to the rest of the climbs in today’s stage. Perhaps the stage is too hard for a breakaway win. Either way. A lot of action is to be expected



The small breakaway today isn’t looking good for a breakaway win. Velasco (Caja Rural), Seeldraeyers (Astana) and Dumoulin (Argos) together aren’t likely to stay away. The reinforcements came from Santaromita (BMC), Bouet (AG2R), Voigt (RadioShack), Izagirre (Euskaltel) and De Marchi (Cannondale). They had 9 minutes on the peloton at the first summit. the mountain sprint is won by Bouet, who is now leading the mountain classification


the breakaway

The second summit was won by Izagirre and the gap is up to 17 and a half minutes. The provisional yellow might change today as well. Bouet is only 22’56� behind Froome.


Sky makes no intention catching the breakaway

The breakaway has started the final leg of the stage. Today that means the final three climbs so they are still long way from home. The gap that was 20 minutes but is now only 17 minutes. Is it big enough to hold the GC favorites off for the stage win?


that’s what they are facing next

The favorites are starting early again. with over 50 kilometers to go, Daniel Martin, Chris Froome, Alejandro Valverde and Joaquim Rodriguez made a first move. König, Horner, Van den Broeck made a connection to that group. Fuglsang, Majka and Urán are in the chase.


the riders are relentless

Sánchez missed his chance to connect to the chasers and made a late response to get up with them. If didn’t work however and is now relaying on Hernández and Roche (Saxo Bank) to close the gap. The gap to the breakaway is now 15 minutes.


so close and yet so far away.

König is having a bad day. he’s the first from the first 10 chasers to lose contact and with 35 kilometers to go, it looks like the young Czech inexperience have caught up to him. Fuglsang also is in trouble. Meanwhile the breakaway’s gap is down to 11 minutes, who have reached the summit. Velasco is dropped and Izagirre wins the mountain sprint. Bouet and him are first and second at every mountain sprint and it seems it’s between the two of them for the stage. If they make it.


NetApp’s good work over the last few weeks seems to be wasted now

Another one bites the dust put up the the chasers. Van Den Broeck and Majka can’t follow anymore. Valverde and Horner aren’t looking good either.



And it’s true, Valverde and Horner have been dropped by Urán!.



The situation is as following at the top of the Port de Bales (second to last climb of today



In the breakaway: Bouet and Izagirre have proved that they are stronger than the rest in the breakaway and have set on course for a battle between the two of them.
In the chase group(s): Majka has caught up with group Horner and Ghita attacked from the peloton. Still behind Moreno though


Euskaltel vs AG2R

The riders left behind Bouet and Izagiire worked well together and got them back, when Seeldraeyers attacked when they got caught.
Chasers: Valverde has made an attack to catch up to the first chase group. Horner and Majka are non-responsive. Ghita has been caught by the now 30 riders peloton


Seeldraeyers tries this time

Seeldraeyers keeps fighting for that stage win. For now he wins the mountain sprint and only has Izagirie and Bouet chasing now. Santaromita, Dumoulin, De Marchi and Voigt couldn’t follow the pace anymore and have dropped off.



Daniel Martin meanwhile has been dropped from the first chase group. It’s only Froome, Valverde and sole pacemaker Urán now. They have caught Velasco as first breakaway member. Valverde is still in the chase on the Froome group while Van den Broeck has caught up with Majka and Horner. Sánchez has jumped away from König and do-nothing Intxausti


Martin pays the price for pacing with Urán

We are almost within the red tenant and Seeldraeyers is still in the lead. The gaps between them is almost neglectable though



Seeldraeyers looks to win the stage but Bouet and Izagiire have started their final dash for the line. With just 600 meters to go is the 21 second gap given by the GPS enough for Seeldraeyers to win today. Meanwhile further back, Inxausti has tanked König for proven service and left him behind to try to get back into the top 10.



Bouet and Izagirre are coming but can only catch up to Seeldraeyers but not go past him.




Kevin Seeldraeyers wins on the Peyragudes, Izagiire and Bouet make up the rest of the podium. Santoromita missed the podium with 4th place and Dumoulin gets 5th place. De Marchi and Voigt finishes 6th and 7th.



Urán has done his job and now Froome has attacked with 1,5 km to go to get more time on Rodriguez, he seems unable to follow.


Froome puts up a minute on Rodriguez in 1,3 kilometers. He will finish 8th, while Rodriguez is 9th. Urán manages to stay on Rodriguez wheel and takes the final top 10 spot.



Daniel Martin recovers from his off-day yesterday and finishes 11th. Valverde 12th. Horner has a off-day today and loses 1’30 to Valverde. Van den Broeck consolidates and finishes 15th. Majka is 14th.



The top 5 doesn’t change but Urán is extremely close to Horner as he’s 7 seconds behind him for 4th place. Martin moves back into 6th. Van den Broeck keeps moving forward and is now 7th. Fuglsang loses a place and is now 8th. Bouet is the new face in the top 10 as he takes full advantage from the breakaways to move into 9th. König just manages to stay in the top 10. Bouet also takes the mountain jersey and Majka takes the youth jersey. he leads by only 4 seconds to Ghita.

Rank	Name	Team	Time
1	Kevin Seeldraeyers	Astana Pro Team	6h18'03
2	Ion Izagirre	Euskaltel - Euskadi	+ 13
3	Maxime Bouet	AG2R La Mondiale	s.t.
4	Ivan Santaromita	BMC Racing Team	+ 52
5	Tom Dumoulin	Team Argos - Shimano	+ 1'00
6	Alessandro De Marchi	Cannondale Pro Cycling	+ 1'12
7	Jens Voigt	RadioShack - Leopard	+ 1'42
8	Chris Froome	Sky Procycling	+ 3'03
9	Joaquím Rodríguez	Katusha Team	+ 3'55
10	Rigoberto Urán	Sky Procycling	s.t.
11	Daniel Martin	Garmin - Sharp	+ 5'23
12	Alejandro Valverde	Movistar Team	+ 6'41
13	Chris Horner	RadioShack - Leopard	+ 8'10
14	Rafal Majka	Team Saxo - Tinkoff	s.t.
15	Jurgen Van den Broeck	Lotto Belisol	s.t.
16	Iván Velasco	Caja Rural - Seguros RGA	+ 8'45
17	Nicolas Roche	Team Saxo - Tinkoff	+ 9'49
18	Samuel Sánchez	Euskaltel - Euskadi	+ 10'29
19	Jakob Fuglsang	Astana Pro Team	s.t.
20	Beñat Intxausti	Movistar Team	+ 10'43

Rank	Name	Team	Time
1	Chris Froome	Sky Procycling	58h42'50
2	Joaquím Rodríguez	Katusha Team	+ 1'49
3	Alejandro Valverde	Movistar Team	+ 6'53
4	Chris Horner	RadioShack - Leopard	+ 8'42
5	Rigoberto Urán	Sky Procycling	+ 8'49
6	Daniel Martin	Garmin - Sharp	+ 16'07
7	Jurgen Van den Broeck	Lotto Belisol	+ 17'50
8	Jakob Fuglsang	Astana Pro Team	+ 18'42
9	Maxime Bouet	AG2R La Mondiale	+ 19'56
10	Leopold König	Team NetApp - Endura	+ 21'06

Rank	Name	Team	Points	General
1	Joaquím Rodríguez	Katusha Team	7	153
2	Alejandro Valverde	Movistar Team	4	135
3	Chris Froome	Sky Procycling	8	111
4	Rigoberto Urán	Sky Procycling	6	93
5	Gerald Ciolek	MTN - Qhubeka	0	81

Rank	Name	Team	Mountain	General
1	Maxime Bouet	AG2R La Mondiale	22	38
2	Ion Izagirre	Euskaltel - Euskadi	37	37
3	Ivan Santaromita	BMC Racing Team	12	24
4	Moreno Moser	Cannondale Pro Cycling	0	22
5	Alejandro Valverde	Movistar Team	0	20

Rank	Team	Time	General Time
1	Sky Procycling	19h16'40	175h44'48 (1)
2	RadioShack - Leopard	+ 2'54	+ 36'59 (7)
3	Astana Pro Team	+ 3'31	+ 36'46 (6)
4	Euskaltel - Euskadi	+ 3'44	+ 12'52 (3)
5	AG2R La Mondiale	+ 8'48	+ 45'13 (9)

Rank	Name	Team	Time	General Time
1	Ion Izagirre	Euskaltel - Euskadi	+ 6h18'16	+ 6'46 (3)
2	Tom Dumoulin	Team Argos - Shimano	+ 6h19'03	+ 22'47 (11)
3	Rafal Majka	Team Saxo - Tinkoff	+ 6h26'13	59h06'29 (1)
4	Damian Owniak	BMC Racing Team	+ 6h33'36	+ 7'16 (4)
5	Dominik Nerz	BMC Racing Team	s.t.	+ 24'00 (12)