It's the final day of the Vuelta and it is a fairly short hop to Madrid with a 2nd category climb to remind us of this heavily mountainous Grand Tour.
Whilst the Giro saw a close run battle between Ricco and Sella, the Vuelta will likely be remembered for the emergence of Angel Madrazo.
Winner of a six stages including yesterday's incredibe solo win up the Bolo del Mundo, there is massive speculation that Madrazo could even double up in the Tour de France as well.
The pack allow Madrazo a short time in front at the start to receive applause.
Amazingly Madrazo had not won a stage in the race up to stage 10, but after doubling up in the Pyrenees his appetite for stage wins since has been insatiable. He has been backed up by his team when needed especially in the earlier stages when Madrazo tentively took the race lead despite not winning one of the mountain stages in the south.
Justo Tenorio and Rafael Valls are also youngsters like Madrazo and this trio could well be part of the long term Santander plan. The unfortunate David Arroyo has possible top ten GC hopes crushed after crashing in the Pyrenees the day after finding himself dropped from the pack. The gossip is that Arroyo will be moving on again next year, he will have at least played his part here.
In terms of stage wins 2nd place on GC and on the mountains competion, Alberto Contador will likely consider this Vuelta a success and a confirmation that he can at least podium in a grand tour. The 30 year old had a bad crash last year and after crashes and bad luck have riddled his season this year, he can celebrate confirming his ability if he finishes okay today.
The climb signals a bunch of attacks from those riders that have something in their legs. Vitor Rodrigues goes on the attack.
Rodrigues has been unable to help Emanuele Sella to a podium, though the Italian who of course came so desperately close in the Giro won the first mountain stage of this race and briefly looked like a genuine Vuelta threat. Though as time wore on it was clear that Sella was called on to use his energy up elsewhere and by the second and third week his brilliance was dimmed. Slipping back to 5th on GC yesterday will have disappointed Sella but two GT top five's in a year is a fine achievement.
We can see here that five more riders are in the break Stefan Denifl Kevin De Weert Thomas Frei Iban Mayo
and Denis Menchov
Nestle have got a sprinter in Hoffman left in the race, but Denifl looking to attack a GC top 10, the youngster having battled hard to try and match his decent Giro 8th place performance. He has four minutes and 15 seconds to make up on Jaroslav Popovych who hasn't really performed as expected. Indeed Wiggle have had a pretty barren tour who best performances have been as a team, sitting 3rd on the team standings and placing third on the team time trial. They have tried to get in breaks but have not quite been able to bring home the big result.
Their task of chasing Denifl is not made easier by several other attacks looking to bridge.
Andrei Grivko Reinhardt Janse van Rensburg Andrey Zeits Daniel Teklehaimanot Eric Berthou Alex Ardila Cano Walter Pedraza Jason Donald Thomas Rohregger
and Leopold König
also move ahead of the pack with sprinters teams Bacardi and Carmuese looking to help Wiggle chase.
Bacardi came into the race of course on a real high after Ricco held on to win the Giro and Michael Van Stayen kept things going nicely with a couple of stage wins. He has been going head to head against fellow Belgian Jurgen Roelandts but neither has had much joy in contesting a stage win since the Pyrenees robbed them of a few key chasing domestiques.
Pedraza and Menchov keep the pace high on the climb as well keeping the break a couple of minutes clear of the chasing pack.
Pedraza was perhaps hoping for a GC top 10, but really has not at the races in the Vuelta struggling round, only snatching 14th place on GC from a lethargic Valls yesterday. Sony will slip back after this tour as stage racing is looking like an achilles heel for last year's protour champions. Experience of the high mountains is something that Pendleton's are short of and unfortunately Denis Menchov has not been able to ride as well as he used to, though it is nice to see him in the break here. Pendletons threw together as best a squad as they could for this and were still short!
But today Menchov is really trying hard to show himself as he, Denifl and Rodrigues pull away from the other breakaways.
The pack are resigned to allowing the break to cross the climb first, looking to reel them in perhaps on the descent and the flat run in. As they slow Carlos Barredo attacks to try and get across.
Barredo has been in a lot of breakaways and benifitted from this to take stage 15 of this race in a rare glory day for Warner Brothers. He hasn't shown an appetite for the mountains points and cannot get any today as Rodrigues takes tha mountains points over Pedraza, Denifl, Menchov and Grivko.
The last name being one of two riders left from B and O, the other being stage 12 stage winner Nico Keinath the young German all rounder not really enjoying the overly mountainous route at least showing himself. As indeed has his teammates Kruiswijk and Grivko both taking stage podiums in the race.
Another team to have snatched some stage wins are Jack Wolfskin who control the pack.
The break meanwhile go through the only intermediate sprint taken by Grivko ahaead of Mayo and Konig and they keep working hard.
The names again: Denifl, Menchov, Rodrigues, Mayo, Barredo, Teklehaimont, Zeits, Konig, Pedraza, Ardila Cano, Berthou, De Weert, Frei and Grivko.
A few riders missing out here, surprisingly Rohregger with all Milka's chips on Konig in the breakaway. Milka have also got a stage win thanks to Jerome Coppel after trying really hard in the first week to take the leaders jeresey. Spyker meanwhile did manage that and a stage win Martin Reimer, they have two riders here though neither are that fast in a sprint so will need to try and split things up.
50 to go and the breaks lead is 4.30, they are still being chased by Bacardi and Carmuese.
It's looks hard to catch though with Bacardi not 100% commited, possibly due to the form of Alejandro Valverde who has moved forward up to 4th on GC, which considering the trouble he had on the team time trial it has been a fine effort from the defending champion. Still he only has two teammates left and one of them is in the break, so he has tyo rely on others work.
Valverde has been unable to catch his rival from last year Beñat Intxausti who has returned to the Vuelta GC podium and will always be remembered as the first winner on the Pico de Veleta. It has been a good back up performance from his teammates Mwangi Samwel and Maxim Iglinski and they should have pulled away a bit but not perhaps as much as predicted on the Protour team standings from Pearl Adidas.
Berthou is representing them in the break, but Tiago Machado has managed a second high top ten Grand Tour placing this year with an excellent 6th here in the Vuelta. The Pearl Adidas squad trying hard to go toe to toe with the strong Vesuvio squad.
Back to the race though and Solis is the last chaser left for Carmuese as we enter the last 30kms.
The gap is still above three minutes and as Solis blows up the pace goes out of the pack as evidenced by Santander coming forward only to keep Madrazo out of trouble.
Back to the race once more and Santander's raising of the pace looks enough to maintain Tenorio's six minute lead on Denifl but with the gap with 10km to go at 3.45, it is looking touch and go with Popovich's 4.15 lead over Denifl.
De Weert and Frei are dropped from the break as we get towards the sprint, no-one from the break has attacked and the gap measured at 5km to go is 4.13 back to the pack (De Weert and Frei are in between).
B and O seem to enjoy leading things out and Grivko is going to try and power everyone off his wheel again - it hasn't quite worked for him so far!
Pedraza, Denifl, Rodrigues, Mayo, Menchov and Barredo are playing the closest order clearly they are the riders with the most energy left in the break after 21 brutal days in the saddle.
1.5km to go: Denifl goes first realising a bonus could take him into the GC top ten.
Under the kite Grivko is in meltdown as Pedraza moves past him. Denifl seems to be leading Rodrigues, Mayo, Menchov, Barredo and Konig out.
700m to go: Rodrigues is just sitting as Menchov and Pedraza are trying to move forward....
400m to go: Menchov goes past Mayo but Barredo is now coming at him. Meanwhile Denifl is beginning to gap Rodrigues, not good news for Wiggle.
Things tighten up as we head to the line, but Denifl has done enough benefitting from the right riders on his wheel.
What a day from the young Austrian - he takes the stage win.
It is a very close photo for third, Barredo just about edging out Menchov, Pedraza and Rodrigues.
So has Denifl snatched the 10th place on GC, with the 20 second time bonus he needs 3.55 as a gap on the pack. The pack are being lead out by Bacardi who are using Mugerli to lead out Van Stayen ahead of Roelandts, Holloway, Bileka and Hoffman.
But out of nowhere Valverde storms through...
He takes 14th place crucially within 20 seconds of Zeits who finished at 3.52. It means Popovich just holds on to the top ten by three seconds.
Madrazo finishes safely in the pack, the only dropped riders being a couple of Carmuese riders.
Final GC
Madrazo wins his first Grand Tour! Contador, Intxausti, Valverde and Sella make an incredible top 5. Denifl only just misses out on a surprise top 10. Five Santader riders make the top 30 with Arroyo back in 49th their 6th in the top 50. That said theor are four Pendltons riders in the top 30 too. 103 finishers - the lowest ever in a Man Game Grand Tour?
Points
Van Stayen and Roelandts were denied a nice battle after those first set of mountains. You cannot deny the Pyrenees are important but this tour seemed overly in favour of the GC men as the points standings show. Coppel, Grivko and Barredo pop up in the Points top 12.
Mountains
No dispute that Madrazo was the best climber in the race and that Contador was the second best really. Barredo could have easily placed second if he had gone for more of the mountains sprints he had the chance to. Solis didn't really make a couple of the key breaks, whilts Terciado made the most of his chance.
Youth
Tenorio wore the white jersey for much of the race on loan from Madrazo, Denifl never looked like allowing Valls to complete a Santander 1-2-3. Any other names to watch out for on this list? Well Valls will improve as will Russian Kritskiy who had some good moments. Ji, Faiers and Costagli are worth mentioning all three also had a couple of attacks in the mountainous stages.
Teams
Pearl Adidas slipped ahead of UBS because of Berthou's last stage break and Frei being dropped late on. Santander unsurprisingly having a bumper race.
