2013 Tour de France Stages 1-3

While I don't feel like writing out (or copying) a long blog post, I will update you on what's been going on thus far in the Tour. I'll do a picture for each of the three stages and write a very short summary about them. If you want more details, please visit CyclingNews.com.

Stage 1 - June 29th 2013

How is this to kick off the 100th edition of the Tour de France: the Orica-GreenEdge bus gets stuck under the finish line banner. The finish line was then moved to 3km back when the peloton was 15km away. It was then moved AGAIN to the actual finish line when the bus got cleared in time. With all the confusion, there was a tremendous amount of crashes. In fact, two of the best sprinters, Mark Cavendish and Peter Sagan hit the ground, and it was Marcel Kittel who won the stage, and who wore the first yellow jersey. 

While riders were indeed hurt, they all finished the stage, and the finishing times were neutralized because all the events. All of the riders started stage 2.

Stage 2 - June 30th 2013

Although there were no bus crashes today, the brutal mountains hit the peloton hard. It's not usually on the second stage that riders get isolated and dropped from the main group. However, the stage played into Radioshack Leopard Trek's plan. Maybe Jan Bakelants isn't RSLT's GC contender, but he won the stage, and is now sitting 1" ahead of 92 riders. He looks pretty happy to be in Yellow. Let's hope RSLT can defend it.

Stage 3 - July 1st 2013

Today we had our first 2 DNFs, Yoann Bagot, who got food poisioning, and Andrey Kashechkin. Even with all the crashes on Stage 1, we've only just now started seeing DNFs. 

Today's sprint finish showed the world that Peter Sagan can be beat, when Simon Gerrans crossed the finish line a split second ahead. However, the consolation prize for Sagan was the Green Jersey. He was finally able to secure more sprint point than Kittel. 

I am wondering what Sagan is growing on his face though. It's not that I don't like it, I mean it does make him look older, but I just don't feel that it fits him.

...maybe in a few more days, I'll bring you up to speed again. But for now, you have to deal with my very random blog postings.

Vuelta a Espana: Stage 14

(http://www.cyclingnews.com/vuelta-a-espana/stage-14/results)

Rein Taaramae’s (Cofidis) mantra may well be, ‘If at first you don’t succeed, try and try again’, which paid dividends for the talented Estonian on Saturday afternoon as he won the Vuelta’s 14th stage on another summit finish in La Farrapona Lagos de Somiedo.

The 24-year-old Cofidis rider has been very active in this year’s Vuelta and finally took the reward for his efforts after what was an intense 173km in the saddle. He took his place in the breakaway early in the stage and managed to hold on to take his first Grand Tour stage win, something many pundits have been predicting for several years.

Showing dogged determination throughout the entire stage, he beat Geox-TMC duo Juan Jose Cobo and David De La Fuente, who finished second and third respectively.

It was a good day for overall leader Bradley Wiggins, the Brit finishing 45 seconds behind Taaramae and most importantly putting time into his rivals on general classification – he now leads Sky teammate Chris Froome by seven seconds, with Rabobank’s Bauke Mollema in third at 36 seconds.

Froome pointed to Wiggins as he crossed the line one place behind in sixth, an indication of the unity amongst Team Sky’s two best climbers and a sign of the pair’s confidence heading into the Vuelta’s final week – could today and tomorrow define who will be this year’s champion?

One man losing his grip on a chance at the title is defending champion Vincenzo Nibali, who now sits 1:25 behind Wiggins on the general classification and slipped from second to seventh overall on today's stage. The Liquigas-Cannondale leader finished more than a minute behind his main rival and suffered the consequences, giving himself plenty of work to do in the final week of racing if he’s to take another crown.

A weighty half needs a solid breakaway

The second half of today’s stage featured plenty of climbing, with the category two Puerto de la Ventana, the first category Puerto de San Lorenzo and a mountaintop finish at La Farrapona, Lagos de Somiedo in store for riders.

With limited opportunities in the sprints at this year’s Vuelta, HTC-Highroad youngster Leigh Howard decided to make the day’s move, taking off about a half a km into the stage. He was soon joined by the others, and after giving chase for nearly 30 km, the peloton finally decided to let them go.

He was joined by De La Fuente and Taaramae, Guilluame Bonnafond and Lloyd Mondory (AG2R-La Mondiale), Rabobank’s Luis Leon Sanchez, Jonas Aaen Jörgensen of Saxo Bank-Sungard, Sep Vanmarcke (Garmin-Cervélo), Alberto Benitez (Andalucia-Caja Granada), BMC Racing’s Karsten Kroon, Cofidis man Yohan Bagot, Jorge Azanza and Inaki Isasi of Euskaltel-Euskadi, Katusha couple Aliaksandr Kuschynski and Eduard Vorganov, Francesco Bellotti (Liquigas-Cannondale), and Daniele Righi (Lampre-ISD).

Nearing the top of the day’s first climb and with 77km remaining, the big break had 7:38, which would prove to be its maximum advantage as 27km later that mark had been cut to 4:55.

On the descent of the Ventana, Vanmarcke and Kroon found themselves being hoisted out of the forest, the pair crashing and forcing the Dutch veteran to abandon the race. Soon after the man who started the day’s break exited it, dropped on the way up the San Lorenzo; the Australian shut up shop and made his way back to the pack.

It all heats up…

With 40km to go and only 2:50 separating break from peloton, it was time for Katusha’s Alberto Losado to make a move of his own, dragging Sylvain Chavanel and several other riders with him; the bunch shut down the dangerous group that threatened to form but a kilometre later there was another attack that saw Movistar duo Beñat Intxausti and Marzio Bruseghin fly the safety of the peloton in pursuit of the leaders.

Just as this pair was gaining seconds on the field, the ever-aggressive Taaramae made what would be the race-winning move and was on his way off the front of the leading group, taking De La Fuente with him to form an attacking duo that quickly created a sizeable gap.

While these front groups continued to toil, Katusha’s Dani Moreno was another to flee the peloton with 35km remaining, followed by teammate Joaquin Rodriguez; meanwhile Leopard Trek strongman Fabian Cancellara continued to set tempo for Jakob Fuglsang and Maxime Monfort, who both sat in the top 10 of general classification and overall leader Wiggins maintained a comfortable rhythm next to them.

A kilometre after attacking, Moreno was soon within 25 seconds of Intxausti and Bruseghin, with the remnants of the break a further 2:20 up the road and rapidly splitting under the pressure of the mountain and the movement of Taaramae and De La Fuente ahead of it.

This latter duo crested the San Lorenzo together, 2:21 ahead of Moreno as the peloton topped the climb a further 13 seconds afterwards. On the descent the Spaniard caught the duo from Movistar to form a chasing trio that soon made contact with Moreno’s teammate Vorganov.

This new quartet set about building on the slender lead it enjoyed over the main field and slicing the two minutes that separated them from Taaramae, De La Fuente and what little was left of the break with the final 20km and the climb to Lagos de Somiedo approaching.

Heading to the finale

Soon Moreno and co had caught the remnants of the break – Righi, Mondory, and Bonnafond (sans Taaramae and De La Fuente) and set to work on the climb proper with the peloton still keeping the gap between itself and the Katusha rider to less than a minute. And with 15km left in the stage it continued to do that, as the leading duo still had over 60 seconds on the pursuers.

The peloton, led by Liquigas-Cannondale, Rabobank and Leopard Trek, tapped out its rapid rhythm while Movistar’s Italian stager Bruseghin carried out the workhorse duties – appropriate given that the 37-year-old famously owns a farm with donkeys.

As the leading duo crossed the 10km remaining banner, the gap stood at 57 seconds and a kilometre later that had only been cut by three seconds, with the peloton continuing its vigilance and keeping Moreno’s lead under a minute.

The Estonian-Iberian alliance at the front of affairs had 59 seconds, as Moreno’s men passed the banner indicating six kilometres remaining and were soon after caught by the peloton, providing the spark for Euskaltel-Euskadi’s Amets Txurruka to light the powder keg and explode from the main field.

The threat of Moreno negated, the peloton eased off the gas and with five kilometres remaining had allowed the leading duo a lead of 1:12, while Txurruka’s toil had only put him 10 seconds up on the main field. A kilometre later and it was time for Moreno to go again, taking Cobo with him and quickly overrunning the Euskaltel-Euskadi rider.

Behind them it was panic stations for Rodriguez and Nibali, the two overall contenders dropped from the group containing Wiggins and his faithful lieutenant Froome, plus Omega Pharma-Lotto’s Jurgen Van Den Broeck, Vacansoleil-DCM man Wout Poels and Denis Menchov (Geox-TMC).

And with Menchov’s teammate Cobo going alone it was time for Taaramae to do the same at the front of the race, dropping De La Fuente (who soon joined his pursuing companion) and heading for home with two kilometres left to ride.

Despite Cobo’s best efforts, he and De La Fuente remained 21 seconds off the Estonian with 1,000 metres remaining as Wiggins, Froome, Van Den Broeck and co continued their march away from the defending champion that could well have helped crown a new Vuelta king.

The man wearing the crown of the day was Taaramae however, kissing his jersey and raising his arm in the air to celebrate what was a well-deserved and popular win, crossing the line 25 seconds ahead of Cobo, with De La Fuente a further four seconds back on what was a good day for the Spanish squad.

1	Rein Taaramae (Est) Cofidis, Le Credit En Ligne	4:39:01
2	Juan Jose Cobo Acebo (Spa) Geox-TMC	0:00:25
3	David De La Fuente Rasilla (Spa) Geox-TMC	0:00:29
4	Wout Poels (Ned) Vacansoleil-DCM Pro Cycling Team	0:00:40
5	Bradley Wiggins (GBr) Sky Procycling	0:00:45
6	Christopher Froome (GBr) Sky Procycling
7	Bauke Mollema (Ned) Rabobank Cycling Team
8	Denis Menchov (Rus) Geox-TMC
9	Mikel Nieve Ituralde (Spa) Euskaltel-Euskadi	0:00:55
10	Jurgen Van Den Broeck (Bel) Omega Pharma-Lotto	0:01:00

GC Overall

1	Bradley Wiggins (GBr) Sky Procycling	55:54:45
2	Christopher Froome (GBr) Sky Procycling	0:00:07
3	Bauke Mollema (Ned) Rabobank Cycling Team	0:00:36
4	Juan Jose Cobo Acebo (Spa) Geox-TMC	0:00:55
5	Jakob Fuglsang (Den) Leopard Trek	0:00:58
6	Fredrik Kessiakoff (Swe) Pro Team Astana	0:01:23
7	Vincenzo Nibali (Ita) Liquigas-Cannondale	0:01:25
8	Maxime Monfort (Bel) Leopard Trek	0:01:37
9	Jurgen Van Den Broeck (Bel) Omega Pharma-Lotto	0:02:16
10	Daniel Moreno Fernandez (Spa) Katusha Team	0:02:24

Vuelta a Espana: Stage 4

(http://www.cyclingnews.com/vuelta-a-espana/stage-4/results)

Daniel Moreno (Katusha) took advantage of a degree of status quo between the Vuelta’s main favourites to claim victory at the race’s first summit finish on the Sierra Nevada. The Katusha rider came up towards the line on the wheel of Saxo Bank’s Chris Anker Sorensen. Then with 400 metres remaining, the Spaniard flashed by on the Dane’s left and had plenty of time to zip up his jersey and celebrate his first grand tour stage win.

The pair had come together just four kilometres from the summit. Sorensen had already jumped across from the main group to three riders who remained from the break of the day. Sorensen pushed on past them and worked hard but had no answer when Moreno jumped hard.

“I’m so happy with this beautiful win,” said Moreno. “I felt in great shape this morning. I knew I could produce a great performance because the course suited my characteristics. Before going after Sorensen, I talked with my team leader, Joaquim Rodríguez. He thought I had good chance of winning today because I’m faster than the Danish rider and told me to go for it.”

Moreno’s win lifted him up to second place overall, 43 seconds down on new race leader Sylvain Chavanel (Quick Step) but he was quick to downplay his own prospects.

“Despite my move up general classification, my job is still to help our leader to win the general classification,” said the 29-year-old from Madrid. “I think ‘Purito’ and me form a great partnership, I’m sure we can gain some more brilliant results in this Vuelta.”

After the red jersey of Pablo Lastras dropped away from the main group on the early slopes of the Sierra Nevada, Chavanel knew that if he could stick with or close to that group he would take over the lead.

Although he did fall back from the front group, which was eventually led home by Garmin’s Dan Martin 11 seconds behind Moreno, the French champion did enough to attain his objective for the day.

Antón cracks, Cavendish retires

While Moreno and Chavanel took the plaudits, the big loser on the day was Euskaltel’s Igor Antón. The Basque rider struggled all of the way up the final climb to the finish and in the end may not have been too disappointed to lose 1:36.

But Antón was far from the only rider to suffer on another blisteringly hot Vuelta day. Winner of the points title last year, Mark Cavendish (HTC-Highroad) abandoned on the second of the day’s three climbs, while 2008 Tour de France champion Carlos Sastre saw his hopes of a high overall finish disappear as the race climbed to the 2112-metre summit.

Seven riders for the break of the day

After a number of attacks had been neutralised in the opening few kilometres, the break of the day formed at the 10km mark as the riders started up the slopes of the first-category climb of Alto de Filabres.

Seven riders got into it: Guillaume Bonnafond (Ag2r-La Mondiale), Matthew Busche (RadioShack), Yohan Bagot (Cofidis), Thomas Rohregger (Leopard-Trek), Eduard Vorganov (Katusha), José Vicente Toribio (Andalucía-Caja Granada) and Koen de Kort (Skil-Shimano).

By the time De Kort led the seven over the Filabres ahead of Vorganov and Rohregger, their advantage was seven minutes on the peloton. Lastras’ Movistar team tried to keep it under control but it did edge out to more than eight minutes with less than 60km remaining.

After the third-category Blancares climb, where Cavendish became the second rider to abandon the race after HTC team-mate Matt Goss on stage two, Rabobank began to push the pursuit of the seven breakaways with a little more purpose.

Sierra Nevada’s long and winding road

Soon after the escape reached the first slopes of the 23km ascent of the Sierra Nevada, riders began to drop away as the heat hurt as much as the gradient. Bagot was the first to go, followed by De Kort and Torobio, although the Spaniard did battle back up to the four leaders at one point, only to blow apart in visibly painful fashion once he got up to them.

Rabobank were still leading the peloton as it started up the final climb, by now less than four minutes down on the break. Their pace soon saw Lastras fall out of the back. RadioShack’s Andreas Klöden was another early casualty of the Dutch team’s pace. This front group thinned down to 50-odd riders, with Antón struggling right at the back.

Up front, Bonnafond and Rohregger were doing most of the pace-making, although with 10km remaining the four leaders had little more than a minute in hand on the peloton as defending champion Vincenzo Nibali’s Liquigas team went to the front. Their efforts saw Antón finally fall away from the back of the group containing the main contenders.

Perhaps sensing that some of his other rivals might be in difficulty as the race headed towards 2000 metres, a very comfortable-looking Nibali launched a brief foray with 7.5km left. The Italian got a decent gap before easing off as the chase began behind.

As Nibali was brought back, Sorensen made his move off the front of this group, and got across to the four leaders inside the 5km mark. The Dane pressed on through the tiring escapees, with Moreno by now chasing hard behind, perhaps with a view to setting up a late attack by his team leader, Joaquim Rodríguez.

But over the closing couple of kilometres the Katusha leader and his main rivals were content to sit in behind Sky’s Chris Froome as he set the pace for Bradley Wiggins, allowing Moreno and Sorensen the chance to battle over the day’s spoils and Chavanel the chance to lead the Vuelta for the first time in his illustrious career.

This was just an early skirmish for overall victory in the Vuelta, with Antón the big loser and Moreno and Chavanel the day’s victors.

Result
1	Daniel Moreno Fernandez (Spa) Katusha Team	4:51:53
2	Chris Anker Sörensen (Den) Saxo Bank Sungard	0:00:03
3	Daniel Martin (Irl) Team Garmin-Cervelo	0:00:11
4	Joaquin Rodriguez Oliver (Spa) Katusha Team
5	Przemyslaw Niemiec (Pol) Lampre - ISD
6	Sergey Lagutin (Uzb) Vacansoleil-DCM Pro Cycling Team
7	Jurgen Van Den Broeck (Bel) Omega Pharma-Lotto
8	Wout Poels (Ned) Vacansoleil-DCM Pro Cycling Team
9	Michele Scarponi (Ita) Lampre - ISD
10	Bauke Mollema (Ned) Rabobank Cycling Team

Overall Standings:

Result
1	Sylvain Chavanel (Fra) Quickstep Cycling Team	13:19:09
2	Daniel Moreno Fernandez (Spa) Katusha Team	0:00:43
3	Jakob Fuglsang (Den) Leopard Trek	0:00:49
4	Maxime Monfort (Bel) Leopard Trek
5	Vincenzo Nibali (Ita) Liquigas-Cannondale	0:00:53
6	Kanstantsin Sivtsov (Blr) HTC-Highroad	0:00:58
7	Fredrik Kessiakoff (Swe) Pro Team Astana	0:00:59
8	Sergio Pardilla Belllón (Spa) Movistar Team	0:01:03
9	Marzio Bruseghin (Ita) Movistar Team
10	Kevin Seeldraeyers (Bel) Quickstep Cycling Team	0:01:04