The last chance for Rodriguez to take time today but it looks like the top 3 is set in stone but that is no reason to conserve energy by staying in the peloton. As demonstrated by Van den Broeck and Fuglsang yesterday, by staying in the peloton you can easily lose 4 minutes. By looking at the profile today, a breakaway win seems most likely.




With the break looking likely to win today it was waiting on who made the first move. It was Kashechkin (Astana) that couldn’t wait anymore. He was soon followed by Bennett (RadioShack) and Pires (Saxo Bank)


the start up of the breakaway

Then the one man groups came to join the break. They battled the wind and the riders up front. Rohan Dennis (Garmin), Tony Martin (Omega Pharma), Lars Boom (Belkin), Mikel Asterloza (Euskaltel) and Sandy Casar (FDJ) made the breakaway


the daily breakaway

When the peloton had started the hilly section that closed this stage the gap was down from 8 minutse to 5’13�. We see that this is mostly done by Sky and for some reason Garmin is also at the front.


Horner, Rodríguez and Martin are all found in the front of the peloton

We see movement from the peloton just at the foot of the second climb today, the Alto de San Emiliano. Hintermuller (MTN) and Serpa (Lampre) try to make a move similar to Birt did that won him two stages earlier this Vuelta. They were countered by another MTN rider Pardilla and Moser (Cannondale). The gap that the Peloton had is down to 3 minutes and bad news for Orica GreenEDGE. Lancaster and Irizar (RadioShack) both crashed lightly but while Irizar was able to return to the pack, Lancaster wasn’t and is now 15 minutes back


Two MTN riders on the attack

They aren’t able to connect with the breakaway before Martin and Rodriguez joined together to gain time on their competitors.


Urán, Horner, Froome, Sánchez and Valverde follow

They quickly pick up Moser and additional weight Pardilla. He wasn’t going to ride since Hintermuller is close to the original breakaway where Casar and Boom have been dropped. Urán managed to join up with the two and seem to be confident that Froome can handle things on his own. Majka (35�) and König (1’04�) are the riders that also have left the peloton (1’37�)


Moser latch on to Group Froome

They also pick up Serpa and Hintermuller. The German is still in 23rd place and has shown to be able to finish good on stages. If he can hang on to the Group: Urán, Martin, Rodríguez, he’s in for a great result. Valverde also saw that Froome isn’t good on this terrain and has joined up with the group. Froome, Horner and Sánchez are a bit behind (34�) were Majka has joined up with them and Pardilla and Moser are still hanging on the same group. König is still a bit behind but losing (1’14�) the peloton is back at 2’07�


Froome tries to distance himself in the background

Froome has distanced himself from his companions and joined up with the Group Rodriguez. Horner is just 21 seconds behind them and Sánchez another 15 seconds behind him.



Horner has caught up with the group but immediately distanced again when Daniel Martin, Chris Froome, Alejandro Valverde and Joaquim Rodriguez attacked. Urán was sleeping and reacts a little late. Late enough for Horner to catch up to his wheel. He drags Hintermuller and Serpa with him. Sánchez is now 33 seconds behind, König and Majka are 1’08�, the peloton at 2’05�.



Andrey Kashechkin tries to give his companions the slip. Who will react?


it looks like nobody

It’s Tony Martin, Pires and Bennett that try. The road is getting short though and the group Froome/Rodriguez is just behind them. Horner has been given the slip by Urán and is now 21 seconds behind that group. Sánchez (54�), Majka/König/Hintermuller (1’22�) and the peloton (2’13�) are chasing



However nobody can deny the Kazakh from winning today in Oviedo. Truly deserved. Started the breakaway up and wins!. The question now remains can T.Martin/Pires/Bennett hold of Rodriguez?



They can, Rodriguez needs to settle with 5th place. Froome almost threatened his position though and doesn’t lose time today.



Rohan Dennis is the last breakaway member to hold off the riders from the peloton. He finishes 7th while Valverde, D.Martin and Urán have to live with 8th, 9th and 10th. Horner will loses little time. The big time losses start at Sánchez, Majka and König though


After losing over 45 minutes today, we can official write Brett Lancaster as a non-finisher today. In the GC nothing really changes, with minutes between riders something crazy would happen if these riders won’t make the top 10, with exception of of tenth place, the gap between Fuglsang and Roche is 8 seconds. Good thing we have something crazy in store for the riders in the final important stage for the GC. The fearsome Angliru


three weeks, three stage wins for Astana

Rank	Name	Team	Time
1	Andrey Kashechkin	Astana Pro Team	4h48'30
2	Tony Martin	Omega Pharma - Quick•Step Cycling Team	+ 46
3	George Bennett	RadioShack - Leopard	s.t.
4	Bruno Pires	Team Saxo - Tinkoff	s.t.
5	Joaquím Rodríguez	Katusha Team	+ 1'06
6	Chris Froome	Sky Procycling	s.t.
7	Rohan Dennis	Garmin - Sharp	+ 1'15
8	Alejandro Valverde	Movistar Team	s.t.
9	Daniel Martin	Garmin - Sharp	s.t.
10	Rigoberto Urán	Sky Procycling	s.t.

Rank	Name	Team	Time
1	Chris Froome	Sky Procycling	76h09'31
2	Joaquím Rodríguez	Katusha Team	+ 2'07
3	Alejandro Valverde	Movistar Team	+ 8'22
4	Rigoberto Urán	Sky Procycling	+ 13'07
5	Chris Horner	RadioShack - Leopard	+ 14'00
6	Daniel Martin	Garmin - Sharp	+ 19'50
7	Leopold König	Team NetApp - Endura	+ 25'33
8	Samuel Sánchez	Euskaltel - Euskadi	+ 26'57
9	Jurgen Van den Broeck	Lotto Belisol	+ 27'59
10	Jakob Fuglsang	Astana Pro Team	+ 30'06

1	Joaquím Rodríguez	Katusha Team	12	195
2	Alejandro Valverde	Movistar Team	8	171
3	Chris Froome	Sky Procycling	10	152
4	Rigoberto Urán	Sky Procycling	6	120
5	Daniel Martin	Garmin - Sharp	7	88

Rank	Name	Team	Mountain	General
1	Maxime Bouet	AG2R La Mondiale	0	38
2	Ion Izagirre	Euskaltel - Euskadi	0	37
3	Ivan Santaromita	BMC Racing Team	0	24
4	Luis León Sánchez	Belkin Pro Cycling Team	0	24
5	Moreno Moser	Cannondale Pro Cycling	0	22

Rank	Team	Time	General Time
1	Sky Procycling	14h31'40	228h21'45 (1)
2	RadioShack - Leopard	+ 4	+ 51'20 (7)
3	Garmin - Sharp	+ 9	+ 40'45 (4)
4	Team Saxo - Tinkoff	+ 1'01	+ 1h13'01 (11)
5	Euskaltel - Euskadi	+ 2'01	+ 25'06 (3)

Rank	Name	Team	Time	General Time
1	George Bennett	RadioShack - Leopard	+ 4h49'16	+ 1h15'11 (16)
2	Rohan Dennis	Garmin - Sharp	+ 4h49'45	+ 26'04 (7)
3	Rafal Majka	Team Saxo - Tinkoff	+ 4h51'06	+ 3'32 (2)
4	Josef Hintermuller	MTN - Qhubeka	+ 4h51'47	+ 14'45 (4)
5	Jorge Cristobal Riquelme	Belkin Pro Cycling Team	+ 4h52'19	+ 23'49 (5)