Final mountain stage! A last hard day of work for the teams, as tomorrow will be a more easy arrival at Madrid.
And it’s the queen stage! 189 km, two cat. 1, one cat. 2 and two cat. 3 climbs are on the menu, with many uncategorized climbs in between, aand though the finish isn’t long, it surely is steep.
Today’s also the last chance to shake up the GC and the young rider classification. Moser has two riders in the favorites’ list. Could this be the way to beat Dombrowski? The red jersey didn’t really show weaknesses this two last weeks.
With “only” 54 mountain points to take today, Schinnagel only has to arrive in Madrid tomorrow to be deservedly crowned best climber of this Vuelta. But a breakaway win could be on the menu, so he’ll want to be in.
There will also be a duel – from a distance – between the red jersey and the green jersey, Degenkolb, for the points classification : 30 points are offered today at the arrival, so a breakaway win would be very much appreciated by the ISA sprinter, even though the German champion will have a chance to shine tomorrow, and to retake the jersey he’s been wearing since day 1, should he lose it today.
There are 15 km of flat before the climibing begins. The weather is clear enough, with a medium wind. A good day to ride!
The Puerto de Pedro Bernando (cat. 1, 18,32 km, 4,4%) begins. We’re at the door of the Parque Regional de la Sierra de Gredos, West of Madrid.
We have a break of 26!
Burke
Dina
Lopez Nolasco
Vlasov, Rybalkin, Mamykin
Gebrezgabihier
Badilatti, Abreu
Gladysh, Spilak, Topchanyuk
Egger, Schinnagel
Barthe
Bongiorno
Phodingam, Quita, Sosa
Conti
Verschaeve, Higuita
Vosekalns, Blums
Van Poucke
Lastra
The best placd in the GC is Burke (14th, +12’05). Inkelaar two opponents for the white jersey being here and not him, that loos a bit like the stage two days ago, when he grabbed his jersey thanks to a breakaway win.
One minute behind this 26, we have Khodayari, Williams, Jaramillo, Primozic, Fuchs and Zwiehoff.
The peloton is 34 seconds behind these 6, with ELCO, Aegon and Gazelle working.
1,3 km left to climb. The 6 chasers have been caught by the peloton, Gladysh dropped by the break, and Schinnagel goes for the points, Burke in his& wheel.
They are not contested, and the German takes the 16 first points of the day.
There is a short descent, and the leaders already are in the Puerto de Serranillos (cat. 2, 8,9 km, 4,9%).
Vosekalns climbs with a fast pace, dropping much of the break, and Blums uses it to take 10 points, ahead of Higuita. Not sure what kind of tactic that his.
At the top, the gap between the 10 leaders and the 73 of the peloton is 2’44.
A group of 41, with Williams and Jaramillo should make it back in the descent.
140 kilometers to ride to the finish line.
At the foot of the descent, the break is back to 14 and the peloton to 83, with 5 guys scattered in between. The gap is only 2 minutes though. The next categorized climb begins in 49 km, but the road won’t be flat until then.
85 km to go and the Alto de Gredos (cat. 3, 4,2 km, 5,6%) begins for 10 riders, Vosekalns, Blums, Spilak, Abreu, Burke, Higuita, Sosa, Schinnagel, Mamykin and Bongiorno.
Quita was just dropped and will be caught by the peloton, which Williams and Jaramillo couldn’t joined (or they were dropped again). They are 3’26 behind the favorites.
Blums, Bongiorno and Sosa take the points, dropping Abreu, Schinnagel and Vosekalns in the meantime. Clearly, this one won’t be for the break.
No sprint Piedrahíta, the gap between the leaders and a 52 men favorites’ group is 1’53.
A group of 11, with Zwiehoff, Uran, Seboka and Mavrikakis is dropped.
And the Puerto de Peña Negra (cat. 1, 15,4 km, 5,6%) begins already! 50 km to go for the leaders. This is the climb to try things, isn’t it? Latour (7th, +9,05, 1,30 late on the 6th, but with only 1’’ advance on the 8th, Chiarello) is the first to attack the favorites.
Schinnagel (20th in the GC) is dropped.
Stancu works to bring back Latour, and Carthy uses it to attack! Other favorites who have much to win today, like Kudus, Schelling and Formolo are near the front.
Carthy couldn’t go far, and Olivier is at the head of the favorites’group. Latour is with the remnants of the break.
Their gap is 0’42 with 6 km yet to climb.
Warchol worked too much already, and he’s dropped.
Latour hauled everyone (except Spilak and Sosa) up, and the others don’t contest him the points. The gap is back up to 2’44, with 35 km yet to ride.
Warchol made it back, as the pace in the red jersey’s group fall down.
Of the top 20, only Schinnagel is not wit(h the favorites or ahead. Sosa is back at the head of the race.
22,5 until the finish line, and Latour’s group is in the valley with a gap of 3 minutes. There still 13 km to ride before the last climb, but the road will elevate well before.
Higuita struggles to follow Latour’s pace.
As the peloton enters an uncategorized climb, Eastman (4th in the GC, +5’48) launches an attack. Kudus tried to join, but Bernard and Sosnitskiy work hard to bring them back.
With Isostar (who has Higuita at the front), Gazelle is the team with the most members in the red jersey’s group.
10 last kilometers! The 7 leaders have 2’30 on the favorites.
Preidler (9th in the GC, +9’13) is dropped with Warchol and Sequera
The last climb will bring the riders to the Plataforma de Gredos (cat. 3, 8,9 km, 4,2%), at the heart of the regional park we mentioned earlier. It’s in 2 parts really, the 4 last kilometers leading to the finish line.
Higuita, Sosa, Burke and Blums quickly get a gap.
Eastman and Kudus, who both feel like they have much to gain today, attack on a false flat (with a 4,7% slopes, so it’ll probably not be flat for you and me).
6 km to ride for the break. Blums has 11 seconds on Burke, 28 on Higuita and 40 on Sosa. The peloton is 2’46 behind, lead by the red jersey himself, chasing Kudus and Eastman.
And when the American is taken, Kudus tries again! 6 km to ride for the Eritrean, as Blums begins the last climb.
3 km left for Blums. He still has 22’’ on Burke. Higuita has 24 seconds on a group with Latour and Sosa, which nearly is the difference in the GC between the 2 young riders. The second group will soon be taken by Kudus.
Inkelaar still is with Dombrowski, 1’10 behind Higuita, the difference in the GC between the two being 3’35.
2 km to climb, and the favorites being to react.
Here’s a look at the situation:
– Blums is still leading the race
– He has Burke, 30 seconds behind
– Then comes a group of 10, from where the red jersey is countering. That doesn’t feel good for Degenkolb’s green jersey
– Schelling, Inkelaar, Yates, Chamorro, Eastman, Chiarello and Foliforov are together, 30 seconds behind the red jersey.
Nobody could follow Dombrowski, who is with Blums under the red kite.
800 m for the two riders. They have a 30 seconds lead.
(Please somebody tell this motorcyclist to not be in the finishing kilometer!)
600 m and there wasn’t much change. Blums can’t follow the red jersey’s pace anymore.
And Dombrowski wins the stage and, without accident, the 2022 Vuelta. He was in red two full weeks! What a race for him.
Blums manages to resist to the other, and he gets a second 2nd place, ahead of Latour, who tried, but wasn’t strong enough to beat the red jersey.
Kudus can’t do better than 5th, beaten by Bongiorno. He also tried, made back is bad 7th stage, but in the end, he wasn’t strong enough for Dombrowski.
Mamykin beats Burke for 6th. Still another good result for the Zwift rider.
Higuita is 8th. He won’t have the white back, but should be 2nd in this classification.
Formolo is 9th, Olivier 10th, Inkelaar 11th.
Then come Chamorro, Schelling and Carthy.
Sosa is 16th, beaten by Foliforov.
Bad day for Eastman, Yates and Chiarello, who are 17th to 19th. They lose nearly 2 minutes to Dombrowski.
And Nesset sprints in to close the top 20 of the day.
Once again, everybody makes it in time, so we’ll have a full peloton tomorrow!
The biggest losers of the day are Preidler, who goes back to 16th, and Godoy, who we missed today. He finished 25th, 4 minutes behind Dombrowski, and goes back to 19th. That’s a shame after his great time-trial yesterday.
Schinnagel is out of the top 20, but we can bet that he won’t be too disappointed.
Dombrowski now has a 13 points advantage on Degenkolb for the points classification. The German will wear green on his behalf tomorrow, and will have a great occasion to bring it home. With another sprint victory?
With 166 mountain points, Schinnagel is a deserving winner of the best climber competition.
Inkelaar wasn’t shaken in the young rider competition: he keeps a 3 minutes lead.
Isostar will at least have the consolation of the best team classification, as they’re leading by more than 10 minutes.
Celebrations, a last sprint and the battle for the green jersey tomorrow! We’ll see you there for a last ride!
