Yesterday saw almost the whole top 10 of the 2011 Tour de France racing –
Cadel Evans – Colorado Pro Challenge
Andy Schleck – Colorado Pro Challenge
Frank Schleck – Colorado Pro Challenge
Ivan Basso – Colorado Pro Challenge
Tom Danielson – Colorado Pro Challenge
Thomas Voeckler – Tour du Poitou Charentes
Jean-Christophe Peraud – Tour du Poitou Charentes
Three riders from the top 10 aren’t racing this week – Alberto Contador has ended his season and is preparing for his CAS defense for November. Sammy Sanchez is racing in Spain this month but chose not to go to the Vuelta and Damiano Cunego is back in Italy getting ready for his own meeting with Italian doping investigators in early September.
The (lack of) Rain in Spain
But what’s obviously missing here is who’s racing the Vuelta? With none of the Tour stars coming to the Vuelta it makes for a more open race – but without the big name recognition the race has an uphill public perception battle. The Vuelta has a reputation as a second chance race these days – for riders who crashed out of the Tour like Wiggins, Van de Walle or Brajkovic, or riders who didn’t have the Tour they expected like Tony Martin or Nicolas Roche. The former typically do better while the latter have to deal with the expectation that they are chasing a result to salvage their season. It’s pretty hard to have a great three week race only four weeks after ending a disappointing three week race.
Looking at the racing the Vuelta has already had three very exciting days – a huge mountain top finish yesterday showed who’s got the legs for the overall (Dan Martin, Sorensen, Rodriguez, Wiggins, Scarponi, Nibali, Brajkovic…) and who among the favorites are already in trouble like Igor Anton who lost 1:36 and Andreas Kloden who is clearly un-interested in racing this Vuelta and lost over 18 minutes. I’d be surprised if he finished the race.
Then today’s double cat 2 climb and steep steep steep (up to 24%) finish saw more time gaps and another tough day for pre-race favorite Igor Anton. Key GC favorites did well to stick close and now with only five stages done there is a clear list of race favorites including – Rodriguez, Scarponi, Van Den Broeck, Nibali, Wiggins and Nicholas Roche. A few nice surprises so far in the are the success of Jakob Fuglsang, Sergio Pardilla and Bauke Mollema.
The racing has been exciting, fast and already showing some variation. One of the great things about the Vuelta is that since the teams are not as strong as they are at the Tour there are more gaps, less control of the peloton, more breakaways and ultimately more head-to-head racing rather then team-vs-team.
With the GC selection starting to shake out the Vuelta takes a bit of a break – two flat stages for Thursday and Friday before Saturday’s big climbing stage again. This should give Sylvain Chavanel a chance to keep the leaders jersey for a couple more days and a chance for Quick Step to get some good TV time / euro-press after a very disappointing Tour de France.
Look for Saturday’s climbing stage to show who is for real at this year’s Vuelta and who’s still riding out some summer fitness this week. This is probably going to shape up to be the best race no one watches!
ONTO THE MAIN EVENT!!!
Just like the post-Tour criteriums where the stars of the Tour de France ride around in a circle withstanding some impressive looking attacks, launch their own and then a pre-determined winner takes the race – the Tour of Colorado, er Quiznos Pro Challenge, er, Colorado Pro Challenge, er USA Pro Cycling Challenge kicked off this week for seven days of UCI racing in America. This is like the revolving door of UCI races in America. It’s not the Tour de Georgia, it’s not the Tour of Missouri, it’s not the Tour of Utah (but that does still exists if you missed it with all the Leadville 100 news). At least this race isn’t called the Tour de whatever-state-wants-to-give-Medalist-a-million-dollars…
So the biggest athletes in the world are here in the USA to race for their major USA based bike sponsors. We have Levi Leipheimer on Trek, Frank and Andy Schleck and Jens Voigt on Trek, Christian VandeVelde and Tommy D on Cervelo (ok Canada – USA whatever), Tejay van Gardaren on Specialized, and Laurent Didier from Saxo Bank on Specialized --- wait a second… Laurent Didier?? That’s the best Bjarne Riis can come up with for an American sponsor at a race in the USA? Wow. Ok so they also brought Gustav Larsson but he’s already a minute back so that’s the end of that.
After a mini-prologue and a stage that ended in a hard 3-mile steep uphill the top 15 is firmed up – 11 Pro-Tour riders, 1 US domestic rider, 2 Columbians no one has ever heard of and 1 athlete who failed a dope test a year ago and still hasn’t been sanctioned.
Now they just ride around the state for five more days and try to figure out how to keep the Columbians from winning the race.
Today’s big stage might actually show some exciting racing – mainly because the Columbians will certainly launch a big attack and the guys from Europe will get confused when their directors make them chase… “Wait a minute – this isn’t like a Post-Tour crit where we get an envelope full of cash and chase down half-baked attacks?”
Certainly when Sevilla and Henao head up the road on Independence pass if the team directors don’t launch a chase Medalist Sports will… After the debacle of Jani Backovic winning (and putting nail #1 in the coffin of) the Tour de Georgia, Medalist and the USA Pro Cycling Challenge management are almost 100% dependent on a recognizable winner to keep this race going. They must have broken out the champagne when Levi took stage 1… even with his questionable status for next year – Levi is a bankable winner and while he provides boring sound bites – at least they are in English!
What’s going on today? Levi and RadioShack will look to keep the Columbian climbing specialists under control and the race organizers will hope at least one of the Schlecks offer up an attack they can use for their promo-video.
These downhill stages are hard to predict – but tell you what it won’t be a Schleck that wins today! Look for Tommy D, CVV and Ryder Hesjedal to all try to get away at the end of the climb or on the descent… Garmin – Cervelo will want to win a stage today if they can.
Exciting racing is on tap for both sides of the Atlantic today.
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