Vuelta a España
This year, the Vuelta starts on Saturday from Italy, where the first 4 stages will be held, the 4th finishing in France. Curiously, there is no rest day between this Italian sequence and the following stages in Spain. In spite of the presence of a high-speed train connection between the 4th stage finish and the 5th stage location, the transfer will be by plane.
There will be 1 time bonus sprint per stage. Depending on the stage, it will either be at one Intermediate Sprint or at the top of a categorised mountain climb.
For points classification: there will be 1 Intermediate Sprint per stage, rewarded by 20 points (only the first 5 riders score points). Concerning stages victories, only the very first and last stages bring 50 points; the rest (half-half) brings either 20 or 30 points; points are always awarded to the first 15 riders.
Mountain classification (white jersey with blue dots):
- 4th cat. : 2 points (2 riders)
- 3rd cat. : 3 points (3 riders)
- 2nd cat. : 5 points (3 riders)
- 1st cat. : 10 points (5 riders)
- HC : 15 points (6 riders)
- Angliru : 20 points (6 riders)
The 5 Pro-Teams engaged are: Q36.5, Lotto, IPT, and the 2 Spanish teams Burgos and Caja Rural. Kern Pharma who won 3 stages (!) last year was not invited.
Vingegaard (🇩🇰 Visma), who has yet to win something this year, is probably the favourite for GC, with Almeida (🇵🇹 UAE) as a contender. Carapaz cancelled his participation again, after cancelling his participation on the Tour of France… Outsiders could be Tiberi (🇮🇹 Bahrein), Gall (🇨🇭 Decathlon), Ciccone (🇮🇹 Lidl-Trek), O’Connor (🇦🇺 Jayco), perhaps Gaudu (🇫🇷 FDJ) if he suddenly returns to being a pro rider.
Pedersen (🇩🇰 Lidl-trek) will go for the green jersey and stage wins. I fail to see any contender or even outsider, as there are almost no top sprinter (but Philipsen (🇧🇪 Alpecin)) or 4x4 riders (but Pidcock (🇬🇧 Q36.5) ?) on the startlist.
This should most definitely be a Pedersen-stage. I expect a top 3 from him, but hopefully a win.
Do you expect him to get into a breakaway, or win from the peloton? In the second case, his team will have a hell of a work, to get rid of better sprinters in the main climb and maintain the gap during the remaining half of the stage. It might be possible to only break away / drop heavier guys in the last hill 30 km from the line, but its ‘steep’ (6%) part lasts only 2 km; and of course there are still 30 km to go then. So I guess betting on a single climb is rather difficult, and they would have to drop/wear sprinters on each of the 3 climbs (the main one, and the smoother ones with a small relatively steep part). But riders here will be harder to drop than on the Tour of Denmark. Yesterday, he was really struggling on the final climb, before the steep section, in a peloton of 100 (?) riders.
After saying that, getting in a breakaway looks easier to me. But it requires finding consenting victims 😀 Or letting an early breakaway go, keep it under control with his team, and then attempting to break away and join them at mid-course or in the smaller climbs.
Anyway, as you can notice, I don’t see it as easy as on the Giro for example, where he and his team really ruled and imposed their strength and tactics. I see him having now much less margin over the contenders.
I think they will ride at a hard pace all day, but of course they can’t do it alone, so someone else will have to contribute. We will see, he needs to score points to realize his points jersey ambition. I don’t see a breakaway with him going far, who’d work when he’s in the group?
So far:
BTW, Zingle🇫🇷 didn’t start the stage, so that’s already one competitor less for Pedersen🇩🇰.
Well, this last mile course design was more interesting than I thought, with those hairpins giving it a feeling of a mini-Poggio.
Philipsen🇧🇪 gave up before the final part.
Pedersen🇩🇰 a little bit too short. Given the names in the top-10, it looks like Pedersen🇩🇰 working for Ciccone🇮🇹 would have been a better chance than the opposite.
Visma: After Campenaerts🇧🇪’s relay, Jorgenson🇺🇸 did an utterly shitty relay which buried Vingegaard🇩🇰, therefore Vingegaard🇩🇰 had more efforts to do after that.
Gaudu (🇫🇷 FDJ) dived in the last curve in a dangerous manner that could have wiped out Vingegaard🇩🇰 or Pedersen🇩🇰, but it went OK and gave him a victory.
Vingegaard🇩🇰 now leads the points classification 😀
Strangely (?), no gaps were recorded until the 70th rider.
Unexpected to see Gaudu win, but not unhappy to see him have some success. Pity it cost Pedersen a victory, though!