💾 Archived View for epi.benthic.zone › posts › 2021-08-22_VueltaWeek1Recap.gmi captured on 2021-11-30 at 20:18:30. Gemini links have been rewritten to link to archived content
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2021-08-22
Spoilers ahead!
La Vuelta began last weekend with a short prologue/time trial in Burgos, and the first week concluded with a terrific mountain stage to the Alto de Velefique in Andalusia. I really enjoy the Vuelta. First of all, the Spanish landscapes are incredibly diverse and beautiful, and a significant part of the attraction of watching any three-week bike race is the view. I also feel like the Vuelta tends to be a much more aggressive race than either the Giro d'Italia or the Tour de France. Part of this has to do with the route, which usually has a lot of steep but short summit finishes mixed in with more traditional flat sprinters' stages and long mountain climbs.
The first stage was a super short "time trial" that is really a prologue. Alex Aranburu of Astana astonished everyone with a superb ride that put him in the leader's seat for a few hours. But Primož Roglič backed up his Olympic gold medal, showing that he is nearly unbeatable in a hilly time triall.
Stages 2, 4, 5 and 8 were sprinters' stages, and I'll cover them together because they have been won by either Jasper Philipsen (2 & 5) or Fabio Jakobsen (4 & 8). Jakobsen's wins were particularly great to see. After his near-death experience at the Tour of Poland last year, he seems to be back and better than ever. With the exception of a few big crashes, and some tantalizing but ultimately disappointing crosswinds, these stages were not particularly surprising. The main surprise from the sprints has been Groupama-FDJ's complete inability to put Arnaud Démare in a position to win a stage. Their team is here for basically one reason: to get some wins for Démare, and they don't seem like they are getting anywhere close.
The real exciting racing has been on the mountain stages 3, 6, 7 and 9. Stage 3 saw a big breakaway go up the road with some strong climbers in Kenny Elissonde and Joe Dombrowski, but it was the veteran Estonian rider Rein Taaramäe who came away with the win and the red jersey, which he would lose ignominiously in a crash on the pancake flat stage 5. The GC contenders would come in a few minutes behind, and the first cracks started to appear in some of the riders, Richard Carapaz most notably.
Stage 6 had the most thrilling conclusion to any stage of the first week of the Vuelta. The first 158 kilometers were a downhill/flat run towards Valencia, but the last 2 km were up the 9% climb of the Alto de la Montaña de Cullera. The breakaway, including the Danish puncheur Magnus Cort, that had been out all day started the final climb with a 20 second gap over the chasing peloton led by INEOS Grenadiers, and it looked like a day for the GC guys, especially Roglič, who wins a lot of his stages on these sharp finishes. Cort ripped it up the climb and just barely managed to hold off a charging Roglič for the win. I have a theory that Roglič may have eased up a little at the end there, remembering the flak he got for beating Gino Mäder on the line at Paris-Nice earlier this year, but the Slovenian proved that he's clearly in winning form at this grand tour, managing to put a gap into just about all of his rivals.
Stage 7 was the first real day in the mountains, with six categorized climbs including the final one to the Balcón de Alicante. I don't think it was quite steep or long enough to really test the GC contenders, though a few of the second-tier GC riders (Vlasov, Ciccone, Landa) lost a bit of time to the five best climbers at the race: Roglič, Mas, López, Yates, and Bernal. The story of the day though was the young Australian Michael Storer, who got away from a strong breakaway to take the victory on the final climb.
And finally Stage 9 to the Alto de Velefique promised to be the major test for the GC riders in the first week. Over 4500 meters of climbing along with super hot and dry conditions meant that anyone not in top form was really going to be found out. When the live coverage started, we saw Damiano Caruso jumping up the road about a minute ahead of the peloton. They wouldn't see the Italian again as he cruised to victory atop the final climb. All was not well for the Bahrain-Victorious team, though, as Mikel Landa got dropped early. Jack Haig proved good enough to stay with the contenders, and the Australian is now the Bahrain team's best hope for the GC. INEOS also fell apart a little bit on the climb as an aggressive Adam Yates repeatedly attacked but couldn't unstick Roglič. Yates's pressure did prove to be too much for his teammate Bernal, who lost a minute to Roglič by the end of the day. Roglič looked fantastic, though, taking second place behind Caruso and just ahead of Enric Mas, who moved into second on the GC. Mas is starting to look like the only person who can possibly unseat Roglič, with everyone else fighting for third.
Going into the first rest day, the GC situation is
Damiano Caruso has the King of the Mountains jersey, courtesy of his win on Stage 9, while Fabio Jakobsen has an advantage of 16 points on Jasper Philipsen in the green jersey competition. The next three stages are hilly stages that might favor a breakaway or a reduced bunch sprint. Then we have a flat stage before getting back in the mountains next weekend.