Vuelta 2014, **el sp-olé-rs**

[MisterStan]

Bike swaps likely then...

 

[The Couch]

A bit late perhaps, but wanted to comment on Anacona's victory...

Missed most of the race on Sunday, only saw the final 4km, but I did see a replay of the last 20 km on Eurosport yesterday.
Gotta say I was mighty impressed by his performance, when he was ahead with Moreno and Jungels (which had already happened in the replay), he clearly did most of the work to try to get the time needed to go for the red jersey (often after releasing the lead, he hooked back into 2nd position, since the other guys realized he was most interested in establishing a big lead).
After all that work he still managed to drop them both (with neither of them being bad climbers either).... impressive!

With that form he might hold on for a top 15-10 placing as well.

Small side comment:
We didn't see anything of the other leaders/escape group, but still weird that Hesjedal didn't manage to do better, he was supposed to be co-leader of the team, right?

 

[The Couch]

Just looked at the start list and seen Betancur is third, not first, off the ramp. Has he been losing some weight over the last 9 days?!!

Naaah, probably he doesn't want to end in last position cause that could perhaps be perceived as showing interest in something

He did well in the TT allowing Klemme and Pelucchi to "gain" some more time to take the lantern rouge


Looking at Sergent's intermediate times (comparing to the others) it looks like there is possibility to gain time on all parts of the TT, but it does seem that the impact of the very long descend (after 12km) won't make that much time up compared to the 1st/climb part

 

[jifdave]

Craddock and popovych going well...

 

[The Couch]

Degenkolb does almost as good:

 

[The Couch]

Although Sinkeldam does better than all of the previous (in the wrong direction though):

Needless to say, as happens many times during these TTs the official site is showing some signs of fatigue

 

[The Couch]

Is Martin training if the UCI ever make the rules harder for him to win a TT? (obliging him to pushing guys along)

Anyway, he just set the best time at the 1st intermediate point, so - considering that is his least suited part of the stage - it's looking like it will have to be a GC guy who is gonna beat him today

 

[The Couch]

Well, according to Martin standards it's only a small margin at the finish line so far (11s ahead of Cancellara), so maybe Froome that has all of a sudden found his best form (and descending skills) could take this

 

[The Couch]

Jerome Coppel just beat Martin's time at the 1st intermediate point with 10s... so it's safe to assume that people like Froome and Contador should take a significant buffer at that point

 

[tug benson]

Cancellara complaining about the road surface and everything else

 

[jifdave]

Jerome Coppel just beat Martin's time at the 1st intermediate point with 10s... so it's safe to assume that people like Froome and Contador should take a significant buffer at that point

54 down at second split 1:35 total, obviously went out a little too hard

 

[tug benson]

Anacona starts on a road bike

 

[The Couch]

Man... just saw Froome pass a section with parked cars, I was crinching for a second there when Froome was busy with his stem-obsession and going quite close to them

 

[tug benson]

froome looked like he was crawling up that hill there

 

[The Couch]

Well, Anacona's first intermediate time is skewed (switching bikes before the line)