Stage 9: Andorra la Vella – Cortals d’Encamp 88.2 km
Welcome to Andorra la Vella, for what the media and cycling fans expect to be a blast.
The profile is extremely short with only Mountain, Mountain and more Mountain, taking place in and around the capital of the Principality of Andorra.
We start directly uphill today and although the official profile of Coll d’Ordino is just 8.7 km, that if misleading as we will see double digit slope within the first 2 km and the total length of the climb is more like 16 km just interrupted by a short flat section before the “official” part.
We have been hit by a sudden heat wave with temperatures up to 36°C, and very little wind so this is going to be a very hot day for the riders especially with all those hard climbs.
The Race
van der Hoorn first with an acceleration at his wheel Poljanski, Owen, Schachmann and McKenna
Still within the first two kilometers another group attacks and is now between the breakaway and the pack. Ciccone, Bevin, Le Court, Azman, Lastra and Tolhoek
These two group unite after another 2.5 km, but looking over their shoulders they can see a lot more riders breaking free of the pack.
Hacecky with Russom
A trio with Geoghegan Hart, Paprstka and Barbero
Warchol with Kruijswijk
Fritsch with Benoot.
More riders even further back but at this point we don’t know who. The peloton quite slow already 2’45” behind the stage leaders.
The first mentioned 20 riders unite and the fireworks from the peloton stop after another kilometer, with one last group now in pursuit. Fronted by T-Mobile team leader Preidler, with Tratnik, Pedrero and Sequera
Preidler is in a very difficult situation, off course none of the three riders he is with, allowed to help such a dangerous rider, but he has to be faster than the 18 riders up front sharing the workload between them. With just 3.6 km to the top, he is still more than a minute behind with the peloton at 4’35”.
Ciccone opens the KoM sprint from 2.0 km, That was way to early and Azman sitting at his wheel when the attack came, takes the Cat.1 in front of McKenna, Lastra, Bevin and Barbero
With this Azman get 16 points to become joint 7th, Barbero 6 points took him to 20 points as shared 4th.
Some riders lose contact over the top and most doesn’t get back on the downhill, this is the situation when the breakaway passes the points sprint just about to start Hors catégorie “Coll de la Gallina”
Leading Hacecky, Kruijswijk, Warchol, Ciccone, Azman, Lastra, Bevin, McKenna, Tolhoek, Fritsch, Barbero and Owen.
At 46” Russom, Poljanski, Benoot, Geoghegan Hart, Schachmann, Le Court, and van der Hoorn
At 1’27” Preidler, Tratnik, Pedrero and Sequera
At 5’03 Peloton 169 riders.
Now the pace slows down a bit, maybe the slopes are just to hard and everyone is saving energy for a while, anyway not only the riders distanced over the last mountain come back but also group Preidler joins the front to form a 24 riders breakaway.
The drop in pace up front also result in the pack led by Edet, sometimes with a bit of help from teammate Olesen has cut 1’30 of the distance with 7.5 km to the top.
From here Ciccone reacts in the breakaway takes the front, upping the pace again. With this acceleration we see first Paprstka then van der Hoorn dropped.
An additional 30” added to the gap now 4’04”, 5 km to the top
Ciccone can’t pull forever and fall back to recharge batteries, the somewhat weaker Benoot take over, and he is fast enough to drop Schachmann and Le Court
3 km to the top, pack at 3’51 they just reeled in van der Hoorn
2.5 km to the top, acceleration by McKenna, drops Barbero, Owen and Fritsch
Another acceleration led by Warchol and we see Preidler in difficulties, clearly marked by the many kilometers uphill where he had to lead his group.
Just one km left to the top of Coll de la Gallina, another acceleration. This time Sequera with Warchol clued.
Warchol sit tight on Sequera’s wheel and with a hard acceleration takes the KoM.in front of
Sequera, Hacecky, Benoot, Lastra and Russom
Warchol moves to shared 4th in KoM with 20 points, Lastra 8 points took him to 7th with 18 points.
Tolhoek, Tratnik and Geoghegan Hart was dropped over the top, where as Preidler grinded back to what is now the 1st pursuit.
Ciccone was also dropped on the long downhill and joined Geoghegan Hart, but on the short flat sector the duo and also Tratnik made it back.
And just as they are about to start the first cat.2 “The Puerto de Comella” they also reeled in Sequera and Warchol.
The pack was at 4’04” at the end of the downhill, but upped the pace a lot, and now the strong Carthy is hammering up the first few km of Puerto de Comella, cutting the gap to 2’33”, the peloton slimmed down to 50 riders, with all the bigger names present. Galta lost contact when the acceleration came but is back.
Tratnik joins the group leading group with 3 km to the top, but with increased pace set by Azman he was dropped again, so was Ciccone and Geoghegan Hart
Another hard acceleration from Azman and it looks like he will get a gap, closest rival is Russom, then Lastra and further back the larger group.
Azman wins at Puerto de Comella with some distance to Russom 2nd and Lastra 3rd.
Azman now lead the KoM with 4 points to Lastra another 2 points to Taaramäe
The pack drops rider after rider the latest victims are Lopez, Novikov and Tvetcov, 28 riders left with 17 harsh kilometers left for the favorites.
Azman start the penultimate climb, cat.2 to Puerto de Engolasters with 16” to Russom
At 48” Preidler, Hacecky, Kruijswijk, Poljanski, Pedrero, Benoot, Lastra and McKenna
At 1’37 Sequera
At 1’45” Warchol and Bevin
At 3’28” Ciccone, Tratnik, Geoghegan Hart
At 4’05”
Pack 29 riders
With 3.5 km to the top Russom connects to Azman
Now at 43” Sequera and Warchol have rejoined the pursuit led by Kruijswijk, but in the meantime McKenna and later also Pedrero, Lastra and Benoot was dropped.
With 1.8 km to the top the pursuit catches the escapees we got 8 riders now in the lead.
Just to reconfirm: Preidler, Hacecky, Sequera, Kruijswijk, Warchol, Russom, Poljanski, Azman
Acceleration from Warchol, Azman attempted to take his wheel but was not able to hang in
Warchol takes the KoM in front of Azman, Hacecky, Sequera and Kruijswijk
With this Azman leads the KoM with 6 points to Warchol another 6 points to Lastra.
We got 4 flat km to the start of the final climb, pack at 4’12.
In the pack Carthy have been and is still lifting most of the workload on the climbs.
Hacecky Sequera Kruijswijk Warchol Azman have the 5 km banner and with that the final climb in sight.
At 40” Preidler, Russom and Poljanski
At 2’09 Pedrero, Benoot, Lastra
At 3’22 Bevin, McKenna
With the pack at 4’59 we can rule out a favorite win today.
The pack has grown to 37 riders and still no one helps Carthy keeping the train rolling.
Up front Preidler, Russom and Poljanski have rejoined the stage leaders.
With 3 km left for the favorites acceleration from Quintana with Velits, Brambilla, Haig, Kudus and Karnulin on a line behind him.
2.3 km left for Quintana, he got a gap to the other favorites.
Kruijswijk lead the breakaway without any notable events besides the fact that they get closer and closer to the finish line.
In the favorite group Brambilla accelerated and closed down the attempt from Quintana, the increased pace took the breath out of Haig suffering at the rear, likely to drop soon.
Kruijswijk lead the break under the red kite and also at 500 meters, the favorites are now less than a minute behind, absolutely no time for tactics.
In the favorite group Taaramäe have taken the lead with Kudus, Kritskiy and Brambilla sitting very close, officially a total of 18 riders in the group but we see small gaps.
Kruijswijk opens the sprint late and he is clearly the strongest in the breakaway today, winning at Cortals d’Encamp
Preidler 2nd with Russom taking the last podium.
Hacecky 4th, Warchol 5th, Azman 6th, these riders all in the same time as Kruijswijk
Poljanski 7th just able to hold of Taaramäe 8th, Sequera from the break 9th and Denifl rounds of top 10
Kritskiy 11th, Pluchkin 12th, Kudus 13th Karnulin surprise of the day 14th, Brambilla 15th and Tenorio 16 all at +30”
Before we leave you some of the important riders losing time today. Cattaneo +1'01 Quintana +1'21 Keizer +3'44 Galta +1'43 Velits +2'35 Barguil +51 Haig +2'50 Olivier +1'21 Keinath +1'43 Kirsch +1'21 Brenes +5'24 Bongiorno +1'52 Carthy +3'29
Rein Taaramäe keep the race lead, still with 42 seconds. Justo Tenorio 2nd and Aleksandr Pluchkin 3nd, they switch position but still in the same time.
Rein Taaramäe also keeps the points lead 26 points ahead of Aleksandr Pluchkin
With an impressive ride today Muhamad Zawawi Azman took the KoM lead with 40 points against Bartosz Warchol’s 36 and Martin Hacecky’s 26
Merhawi Kudus extended his U23 lead to 6’33 over Miguel Angel Lopez
Aegon – Lavazza keep the team lead, but reduced to 2'01” in front of Gazelle
Vuelta a Espana 
