The stage start in La Seu d'Urgell, Provincia de Lérida. A town located in Segre river valley inside the Pyrenees. The town was established in the transition between roman times and the middle ages. There is known to have been a Bishops of Urgel from 527, current Cathedral from 12th century. Today the town has a population of about 12.000 people.
From here the route moves west, cutting through the center of the Pyrenees passing over four brutal mountains, a total of 4.260 meters upwards, before a finish in Loudenvielle on the French side of the border. Loudenvielle is a small but beautiful village with 340 residents at the shores of a lake, Lac de Génos-Loudenvielle
188 km up and down all day, another of those stages where you can use the cliché, you may not win the Vuelta a Espana here but you can very well lose it. Also a stage with a lot of KoM points at stake surely attracting those well placed in that competition.
The weather has changes again, today we got nice sunny conditions but a strong breeze may be difficult on the long high speed descents.
Prades opens the stage with Olivier at wheel, a little further back also Hughes, Parra Bustamente and Vermeltfoort coming closer as the first two slow down a bit.
Just a few km later a new attack, Konovalovas, Didier and Declerq trying to get in the break.
The first group start Port de Cantó a 25.0 km climb at 4.3%, with 1’11 to the peloton.
Behind we see the poursuivant coming round the corner.
Didier makes it to the first group.
While Konovalovas and Declerq is swallowed by the peloton
The name of this breakaway is off course Olivier he leads on most of the hard parts of the climb, and takes the KoM in front of Parra Bustamente
Herrada and Chhetri attacks from the peloton too fight for the last points.
Result of KoM Olivier Parra Bustamente Hughes Prades Didier Herrada
When the peloton passes the top the situation is
Group Olivier (6 riders) in front
Group Herrada (2 riders) at 3’45
Peloton (164 riders) at 4’45
8 riders starting to form the Gruppetto at 7’30 or more.
It is Vesuvio – Accumalux leading the peloton
Herrada and Chhetri close the gap to the front group, we now got 8 riders leading the stage.
They start the frightening Hors Catégorie climb to Puerto de la Bonaigua (22.9 km 4.9%) with a distance of 5’03. It will be 1.120 meters upwards to an altitude of 2072 meters.
Kirsch is leading the peloton on the climb, and the pace it too hot for the weakest rider, slowly dropping out the back door. Over the top the peloton is reduced to 105 riders, but none is the top 20 GC is in trouble all sitting amongst the first 30-40 riders.
In the breakaway Vermeltfoort has a hard time, trying to keep up with the pace set by Parra Bustamente and Olivier, with 5 km to the top he has to get go.
Olivier takes the KoM in front of Parra Bustamente, the latter seem to have brilliant legs today keeping up with the clearly better Olivier
Olivier is 16th in CG at 17’42, and 4th in the youth classification 7’07 behind Galta. He started the day with 10 KoM points (20th)
Peloton at 5’20 over the top
Result of KoM Olivier Parra Bustamente Hughes Chhetri Herrada Prades Didier Vermeltfoort Kirsch A.Schleck Dombrowski
Olivier takes the intermediate sprint in Vielha, those 6 bonus seconds are not likely to matter, but who knows.
Vesuvio – Accumalux sets several riders in front to close in on the breakaway on the long decent, Goos, Heymes, Kirsch
The pace is very hot, and the gap is closed down to 2’20” before the start of the next climb
Vermeltfoort is back at front when the breakaway starts the climb to Coll del Portillón, 8.5 km at 6.9%.
In pace is very hot on this climb, the breakaway is fragmented with only Olivier and Parra Bustamente ascending towards the top together, until finally Olivier attack also leaving the last companion behind.
This is the times between what was the breakaway when Olivier passes the top of Coll del Portillón entering into France. Also result of KoM
Olivier with 36.7 km to the finish line. (KoM1)
At 44” Parra Bustamente (KoM2)
At 1’30” Hughes (KoM3)
At 1’51” Herrada (KoM4) and Chhetri (KoM5)
At 2’07 Didier (KoM6)
At 2’22 Didier (KoM7)
At 4’14 Vermeltfoort
In the peloton we get a very surprising development, as it is Keizer opening the contest between the favorites, he is better placed that teammate Daan Olivier, but why attack this early, with the risk of reeling in his mate?
Behind Keizer also Monsalve and Lecuisinier attacks.
The other Favorites do not react on the development, it is still Vesuvio – Accumalux leading all the way to the top.
The situation when the peloton passes the top Olivier alone in front
At 1’00 Parra Bustamente
At 1’52 Hughes
At 2’17 Herrada Chhetri
At 2’48 Didier
At 3’15 Prades
At 4’20 Keizer Monsalve and Lecuisinier
At 5’02 The Peloton (95 riders)
We get a huge crash at the very beginning of the descent, with some important riders lying at the ground.
In random order all riders down is: König, Konrad, Galta, Arndt, Heymes, Van den Broeck, Brambilla, Nepomnyachsniy, Kennaugh and Pedrero
After the crash a group of 26 riders with race leader Schleck and the other favorites aside those in the crash, rushes downhill and managed to reel in Keizer Monsalve and Lecuisinier
Then the peloton slows down a little and more riders join up from behind, Arndt Galta König get back.
Where as we know for sure that Van den Broeck, Konrad and Kennaugh are not back they are in a group some 4 minutes behind the peloton.
The peloton is 3’42 behind Olivier when they start the last climb of the stage, Col de Peyresourde 14.2 km at 6.6%
Then we get a series of new attacks while at the same time rider by rider from the breakaway are brought back.
First it is Keizer and Haig but Goos and König brings them back.
Then it is Keizer, Haig, Monsalve and Lecuisinier
Again Goos and König tries to brings them back, but they can’t close down Monsalve
With 6 km to the top for Olivier, 17.5 km to the line. Monsalve is at 2’33
Peloton (76 riders) at 2’59
With a little less than 5 km to the top for Olivier it is starting to show that the rider has had a long day in the breakaway.
Monsalve is getting closer very fast at so is the favorite group.
Monsalve catch Olivier with 3.4 km to the top.
Peloton now 63 riders at 40”
Madrazo attacks
Madrazo join Monsalve with 1.6 km to the top, it has been over for Olivier for some time.
We get a counter attack for the GC riders sitting best placed in front of the peloton Dombrowski, Schleck, Pluchkin, Kritskiy and Machado
Arndt was sitting too low to get in this group, partly blocked by Velits and Lecuisinier, but he has reacted fast and is now accelerating out of the peloton.
The poursuivant get up to Monsalve who was left behind by the pace of Madrazo
Out of the 2nd group Dombrowski attacks and close the gap to Madrazo just as the pass over the top with 12 km to the line.
The situation is/(KoM) Madrazo (KoM1), Dombrowski (KoM2)
At 13” Pluchkin (KoM3), Machado (KoM4), Schleck (KoM5) and Kritskiy (KoM6)
At 44” Arndt (KoM7)
At 51” Galta, Monsalve
At 1’04” Velits
At 1’16” Keizer Preidler, Lecuisinier and Haig
At 1’29 Vosekalns and Abal
The due in front is increasing the distance to the next group at the downhill, let’s take a final overview of the situation then they hit the flat section, 3 km to the line.
At 26” Pluchkin Machado Schleck Kritskiy
At 43” Arndt Galta Velits
At 1’15” Keizer Preidler, Lecuisinier Haig Monsalve Vosekalns Abal Koch
At 1’51 Van der Velde, Bonnin, Brambilla, Herrada
The riders are tired from a very hard stage, the sprint starts late, Dombrowski on paper the best finisher but is does not matter at this point, Madrazo sprinting from the front position, wins in Loudenvielle.
This was Madrazo first win and 3rd podium and also Dombrowski’s 3nd podium.
Schleck 3rd, Pluchkin 4th and very impressively Arndt have made it into this group on the last few km to take 5th.
Schleck’s 6th podium of this Vuelta.
Machado 6th and Kritskiy 7th
Galta an impressive 8th after his crash, further improving his Youth lead.
Velits 9th and Koch 10th in front of Abal, all those riders losing 23" to the winning duo.
Andy Schleck is clearly leading also after this stage, but the unbeatable rider we saw at the first mountain stages seem to have faded some, and today’s winner Madrazo will be challenging him in the ITT later in the race.
In the GC Peter Velits had a good day entering top 10 in 9th position
We saw other good result from Nikias Arndt and Jack Haig, improving their GC
A special mention should go to Ricardo Van der Velde, a rider like him coming 12th on a stage like this, is almost unbelievable.
In the KoM must mention today’s impressive raid by Daan Olivier, grapping 52 points today, after that he is now 6th in the competition, may not sound that great but only 8 point up to 2nd.
Fredrik Strand Galta further improved his lead in the youth classification.
[PTM] Vuelta a Espana 
