This barmy little stage race does things in a funny order, after sneak attacking the sprinters with a hilly finish yesterday we have a mountain stage today. Yet the Parcours reveal a fairly flattish looking one:
It is a strange one at altitude, though from km 100 to about km 170 we have pretty full on climbing with a few steep ramps. This is going to hurt the riders a lot before a final 30km of false flats and varying descending.
Lopez Garcia (Santander) looks up for this following that disappointing Volta where seemingly Santander’s promotion hopes lay in tatters. His closest big name climber too him yesterday was Bimbo Nutella’s Mbangwi Samwel, though that team have a number of cards to play here. Similarly the Sport Lisboa a Benfica who make mountains their playground have lots of climbing talent the most marked name being Florentino Marquez.
The early stages is really long steady climbing at altitude and a young Columbian rider from Quiksilver goes out on his own.
Carlos Betencourt is our lone attacker
Impressing at his home tour and some good performances in the mountains at the Tour de l’Avenir have got many comparing this youngster to the likes of Sergio Henao who has been a real revelation over the last two years. Betencourt will take the early mountain primes, which are both 10 pointers and the early sprint. At the sprint Chris Sutton takes the second place ahead of Benfica’s Colorado, there is more interest for the minor placings on the King of the Mountains with four riders attacking away from the peleton for the points.
Ortega, Mercado, Craven and Zwizanski go for points
At the first then it was Betencourt, Zwizanski, Mercado, Ortega and then Craven. At the second it was Betencourt, Craven, Zwizanski, Ortega and then Mercado.
So the points after the initial section saw the King of the Mountains like this:
Betencourt 20
Zwizanski, Mercado 17
Ortega 16
Craven 15
But the KoM attackers went back to the peleton, Betencourt just kept rolling to getting a 7 minute lead with 110km to go. This freed the Columbian up to go through the sprint (ahead of Sutton and D Martinez) and the next two climbs ahead of the usual attackers. The KoM after these ones was like this:
Betencourt 40
Mercado 37
Ortega 35
Craven, Zwizanski 31
These five riders now surely the ones who will dominate the standings for the race. The Columbian is not getting a completely free rein on things today though as the peleton are speeding up, as we climb the lead is down to 3.24 with 45 to go.
Roman Kilun (Red Bull) launches an attack on the steep ramp into the last classified climb and it is pandemonium as Lopez Garcia decides to follow this.
GC shake up time as Kilun presses the chaos button
Samwel, Delgado(Quiksilver), Marquez, Mercado, Damian Martinez and Rafael Valls (Santander) also attack away. With all five teams represented in some way, the is no impetus behind to chase so this could be it. Lopez Garcia is pressing on the pressure really hard and reels in Betencourt before the top of the climb. However it is only just and impressively Roman Kilun is hanging on well also.
Lopez Garcia catches Betencourt before the top of the climb
Over the top it becomes clear that some of the riders behind in the peleton have not given up their GC ambitions as Red Bull and Bimbo Nutella launch a team move to get riders away from the Benfica bloodhounds. Sabido and Camano from the chocolate spread squad team with Semple, Rodas and Zwizanski for the energy drink lot, Ortega tags along for the ride. With 20km to go we have this situation then:
Lopez Garcia
Kilun at 35 seconds
Marquez, Samwel, Mercado, Delgado, Betencourt, Valls and Damian Martinez at 1.01
Camano, Rodas, Zwizanski, Semple, Sabido, Ortega at 2.30
Group Rodrigues/Colorado at 4 minutes
It is surprising that Benfica have only one rider Marquez in the top 15 here, this has been their strategy sometimes to play defensive on the opening mountain stage. The seven man power group is the key here and with four Quiksilver riders it is no surprise to see their big mountain man Delgado try to bridge to at least American veteran Kilun.
Delgado puts in a spurt with 15 to go
He is marked here by Marquez who must have a hopping mad DS in his ear, but it is Samwel who makes the biggest jump who gets across to Kilun and then the key man Lopez Garcia.
Samwel bridges across to the leader
Lopez Garcia is looking for a time gap on every one and with the knowledge that Valls is close by does not work. We are getting close to the finish here and with 5km to go it is really 8 men Marquez, Samwel, Kilun, Delgado, Lopez Garcia, Valls, Mercado and Damian Martinez who are together. Betencourt unsurprisingly being the rider to be dropped away.
Eight riders up front with 5 to go
The chase group behind has just four riders left Rodas, Camano, Ortega and Zwizanski they have got to about 50 seconds of chasing down the leaders . Benfica have launched Moreno solo but he is back at 2.30 and will not get over to them.
Benfica make one more mistake as Marquez foolishly leads out the sprint at the end of the stage.
Comedy of errors continue as Marquez leads out
They all come flooding around the young Portuguese in the final kilometre, Samwel the best placed on his wheel taking the stage win ahead of Kilun and Spanish duo Lopez Garcia and Valls.
Samwel takes the second stage
Delgado, Marquez, Mercado and impressively Damian Martinez stick with it and finish on the same time. Quiksilver could not make their numbers pay in the sprint but do have now three great positions on the GC. The four man chase group Camano, Ortega, Rodas and Zwizanski finish 43 seconds back ahead of Daniel Moreno at 1.51.
Lopez Garcia still leads though this stage could have been better for him, all to play for on tomorrows tougher and probably queen stage of the race.
