We’re back for the last stage in the Vuelta a Colombia! Hacecky was the winner of yesterday’s stage after a close battle with his fellow breakaway rider Eenkhoorn, and it could very well be the breakaway delivering today’s winner as well. Taaramäe has been quite dominant so far with two stage wins and also gaining some extra time on closest competitor Dombrowski, who’s the only rider left within a minute of the Estonian together with number three Pluchkin. Number four Wellens already following more than two minutes later. It should be between the best three in the GC who are also seen as the best three climbers in the Colombian peloton, but you never know what can happen. Still 74 KoM-points available as well, so anyone could still win that classification. It's Christmas day, so the riders could give their managers a very nice gift with the stage win and different classifications that can still be won. Without further ado, let’s see what riders will form the breakaway.
Interesting! Many attacks lead to a breakaway of 34 riders, with 6 more trying to join them and just behind at the moment. The most interesting names in the break are Schleck (17th), Stüssi (28th), Nesset (20th), Mamykin (16th), Godoy (19th), Vasyliv (18th), Ji (21st), Bizkarra (32nd), Salinas (31st) and Costagli (25th). Kiserlovski one of the six riders trying to make it 40 at the cabeza de carrera.
Nordstrom – CA Technologies has won the first stage and ended second yesterday with loanee Eenkhoorn. They are one of the few teams having no one in the break and would like to bring them back. The only other teams not in the breakaway are Volvo, Aker – MOT, eBuddy and Popo4Ever.
The KoM-battle will be interesting to follow. On the first mountain of the day, second category, it’s Schönberger taking the ten points ahead of Ji, Cink, Ivanov and Kunshin. The Bulgarian Minion was the only one who had scored points in a previous stage, still 64 points to collect today.
After a steep descent the riders immediately tackle their first of four 1st cat. mountains of the day. Ivanov crosses the top first after attacking from far away, which gives him another sixteen KoM-points, already very close to KoM-leader Taaramäe! Ji grabbing a decent twelve points as well, the rest of the points go to Koshevoy, Nesset, Kiserlovski, Cink and Vasyliv. The leading group now torn into different groups, we’ll soon see what this gives us in the valley before they enter the second part of today’s stage with still 48 KoM-points to win. The peloton of 109 riders and now being led by the top-3 teams following at 4’. The sprinters, puncheurs and some others have already let go and are looking forward to the next race.
With 100 km to go and preparing for the next three mountains while cruising through the valley we see a leading group of five riders having a minute over what’s left of the original breakaway (30-ish riders) and the same 4’ over the peloton, with only 90 riders left after their descent. The five at the front are Koshevoy, Nesset, Cink, Ivanov and Ji. The chasers quickly come back though, thanks to Schleck, who seems to believe teammate Godoy has a big chance of winning today’s stage. 32 riders at the front of the race.
The work of Nordstrom is now rewarded, as they came very close to the 32 leaders (1’15”) and Eenkhoorn, the loanee who almost won yesterday’s stage, made his way to the first group. He has 26 points in the KoM-standings, which is 18 less than Taaramäe and 10 less than Ivanov. As it’s still 10 km to the next top he has a bit of time to recover and try and do something impossible. We can imagine manager Abhishek being very happy to see his rider doing such nice things in the PTHC.
The leading group has been thinned out on the third mountain of the day. Sadly but unsurprisingly Eenkhoorn couldn’t follow the best of the group uphill. Kunshin takes the sixteen points and Ivanov now grabbing the virtual lead with a second place on the top, adding an additional twelve points to his tally. The other points are awarded to Kiserlovski, Vasyliv, Novak, Godoy and Cink. A peloton of 59 riders crosses the summit almost four minutes later. Now the riders have another fast and steep descent before they immediately ascend their penultimate mountain of the Vuelta a Colombia!
The riders will now start the next mountain of first category, and this is how it looks at the front. The ISA – Hexacta duo has been caught by surprise a bit it seems, as they are trailing by almost one minute. The peloton following at 3’30”.
With 6 km left to climb the first two groups come together on the penultimate climb of the day.
We haven’t seen him all week, nor today, but all of a sudden it’s Panayotov leaving everyone behind on the penultimate climb! His fellow countryman Ivanov seems to be out of energy and takes no KoM-points here, but he should be virtually sure of the win! The other points go to Kiserlovski, Salinas, Cink, Godoy, Nesset and Schleck. The peloton crosses the top of the mountain almost 5’ later, it seems one of the breakaway riders is going to win this one!
A leading group of sixteen riders has started the last climb of the day! It’s a 10 km climb with an average gradient of 7.8%, and at the moment they’re 4’15 ahead of the peloton. After the climb there are still 30 km to the finish, but as most of those km’s are downhill a breakaway rider still has a decent chance of winning if he comes over the top a little bit before the peloton does. The best placed rider in the leading group is Mamykin at 5’41”. The other fifteen riders here are Panayotov, Ivanov, Kiserlovski, Salinas, Cink, Godoy, Nesset, Schleck, Dees (first mention of the day for the Dutchman), Ji, Costagli, Stüssi, Kunshin, Vasyliv and Bonnin (also first mention of the day for him!).
While Kunshin is the first to get dropped with 8 km to climb, Fuchs is bringing the peloton closer, now at 3’20”! Just behind the Swiss from Team UBS we see Hacecky, yesterday’s stage winner, who’s hoping for the break to be caught so he still has a chance at winning that KoM-jersey!
5 km left to climb for our fifteen leaders with Schleck now setting the pace! In the peloton Popo4Ever has now taken over from Fuchs, who did a great job and brought the peloton up to only 2’30”!
It’s Minion Ivanov who’s the next to be dropped with 3 km left to climb. The good news for the Bulgarian is that the peloton is still around 2’30” behind, so normally he wins the KoM of the Vuelta a Colombia! In the peloton Anacona (29th) is being dropped a bit too easily now.
A lot of work by Schleck, but it’s not his teammate leaving the others behind! Instead, it’s Panayotov who tries his luck at 1.5 km from the top! Nesset and Mamykin trying the follow the Bulgarian from Adastra!
Impressive performance so far by the man of Adastra N Hell Energy Cycling, who has a 20-second advantage over the duo mentioned above at the top of the mountain! Salinas trying to follow them as well, 30 km to go, downhill most of the time!
Nobody attacking in the peloton seems to have put the team of yellow jersey Taaramäe to sleep! He won’t be losing his jersey to Dombrowski or Pluchkin, but they are 5’ behind Panayotov and more importantly 4’30” behind Mamykin, who could still take some bonus seconds at the finish line and only has to gain one more minute now!
Panayotov still has his 30 second lead over the same three who crossed the top of the mountain after him. Very close to those three we see the quintet of Bonnin, Kiserlovski, Godoy, Ji and Costagli. The peloton has come a bit closer though, so Mamykin's dream of conquering the yellow jersey should be over.
15 km to go now, and Panayotov still leading by 20 seconds over the first three chasers and 20 more on the other five! Peloton 4’30” behind on the Bulgarian, meaning Mamykin is still around third place in the GC virtually.
Nesset, Mamykin and Salinas giving everything to catch the Bulgarian leader, who’s still 15” ahead entering the last 10 km, which are downhill until the end! The five behind still at 20” from this group and the peloton coming 10” closer!
The descent is five km too long for Panayotov! He gets caught and joins the other three who now have 25” on their five chasers. Peloton at 3’40”, Mamykin virtually fourth in the GC!
Panayotov should be the better sprinter together with Nesset, although the difference with Mamykin and Salinas shouldn’t be too big. The Bulgarian playing it smart and not taking over anymore (or is he just too tired) as the riders now enter the last 2 km! Should be between those four as the gap over the chasers is still the same!
Entering the last km now and Mamykin at the front! Seems like they don’t want to start their sprint from too far, as they must all be exhausted!
And they’re off! The Russian immediately gets overtaken by Nesset, Panayotov now choosing the right side of the rider of Team Tinkoff and in danger of getting stuck!
Panayotov is still alive and quickly overtakes Nesset, but it’s Salinas who surprisingly takes the lead with 300 metres to go!
The Venezuelan still in the lead with less than 100 m to go now!
And he is the unexpected winner of this sprint! Well done by the rider of Air France – KLM! Mamykin finishes fourth and doesn’t grab any additional seconds but should be good for at least a top-10 in the GC, which is of course an amazing performance by the Russian! Panayotov finishing second and thinking he should have been caught earlier as those extra percentages he lost while riding solo could have made the difference in this close sprint. Nesset completes today’s podium.
Godoy finishing fifth and taking some time in the GC is not extremely bad, but not good enough after teammate Schleck worked so hard for him. Places 6 to 9 go to Bonnin, Costagli, Kiserlovski and Ji.
It’s Schleck himself winning the sprint for the tenth place. Now we’re waiting on the peloton.
2’50” later Bernard wins the peloton sprint. Taaramäe makes manager ember a happy man by winning the GC, the points jersey and two stages in the Vuelta a Colombia!
