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Credit: Clichés-Cyclisme (Creative Commons Licence)
Irish rider Nicolas Roche is currently sitting fifth overall in the Vuelta a España as it nears its finale. If Roche retains this position by the time the race finishes in Madrid on Sunday, it will be his best result to date and, perhaps more significantly, the best grand tour result by an Irish rider since Sean Kelly won the Vuelta in 1988.
How good a chance does Roche have of retaining that position or even moving up the rankings? There are two crucial stages between now and Sunday in which the overall contenders can expect to take time out of one another. The first is a 46km time trial today in Peñafiel. Then on Saturday there is a mountain stage that culminates in the massive climb to Bola del Mundo.
Roche is lucky in that overall classification at present is dominated by pure climbers. While he himself is no mean climber, he is more of an all rounder than many of his rivals. Roche e put 3:30 into current race leader Joaquin Rodriguez in the final Tour de France time trial. Rodriguez was defending a top ten position in the Tour too, so he was hardly taking it easy. Ezequiel Mosquera, currently sitting in third is likely to be just as weak in the TT as Rodriguez, while Frank Schleck, currently sitting just above Roche in fourth, has never been strong against the clock. Vincenzo Nibali, now second after cracking on Monday’s mountain stage and losing the red jersey, is a different story. A strong time triallist, he is likely to pull on the red jersey again this afternoon.
Roche, a former national time trial champion, has a reasonable expectation of putting time into most of the men ahead of him and has decent advantage over Peter Velits and Tom Danielson, the men sitting behind him in sixth and seventh in the overall classification.
Sautrday’s stage to Bola del Mundo will be an opportunity for the climbers to have their revenge. I rode this earlier on in the summer and its a brutal climb. You go up the Puerto de Navacerrada, which is about 20km of climbing in itself, then take a turn off at the top of the pass to go up a private road to a television mast and that’s the toughest part in terms of gradient. Rodriguez and Mosquera will both be able to put Roche under the cosh here. Schleck now appears to have ridden himself into form too if Monday’s stage is anything to go by. It may not seem suited to Roche, but remember he had a decent result on the Angliru two years ago.
Roche has got an excellent chance of holding on to fifth, which would be a fantastic result in itself. If he rides a great TT, he could move up a few places, but it’s very hard to see him building up such a lead that he could defend it on Bola del Mundo to grab the overall. I’d love to see it happen though.
Nibali ought regain the overall at the TT today and put a decent amount of time into Rodriguez, Mosquera and Schleck. For Roche to win, he’d need to overtake the latter three in the TT and then hope that Nibali cracks again on Bola del Mundo like he did on Monday and the pure climbers don’t put enough time into him on the climb.
Credit: Mikelo (CC licence)
There are a couple of days every year in professional cycling that are unmissable. In the spring, it is the one day classics such as Paris-Roubaix or the Tour of Flanders. Once the summer rolls around, that sense of anticipation switches to the epic mountain stages of the grand tours. Tomorrow will be just such a day, with the Vuelta a España tackling the Alto del Angliru.
Reputedly the toughest climb in professional cycling, it will be one of those rare days that compact crankests or even, heaven forbid, triples will make an appearance in the peloton. Up until very recently, the road was little more than a goat path and the Vuelta has only been up it three times. The average gradient of the 13 kilometre climb is around 10 per cent. However the Angliru’s fearsome reputation derives from several sections where the gradient hits 20 per cent and beyond, the kind of climbing that would have most mere mortals simply climbing off their bikes.
Every time the race has gone up there the weather has been foul, so much so that race organisers considered abandoning using it because the team cars were stalling on the way up. In 2002, British rider David Millar famously tore off his race number at the top and refused to cross the finish line, saying the organisers were treating riders like performing bears on bikes.
The most likely candidate for victory is undoubtedly Spain’s Alberto Contador. A favourite for the overall win, Contador is also the premier climber of his generation and has the capability to destory his rivals tomorrow with his withering attacks. Tour de France winner Carlos Sastre and Contador’s team mate Levi Leipheimer will undoubtedly gamely try to hang on and limit their losses. Ones to look out for include the young Basque rider Igor Anton and Ezequiel Mosquera, from the small Xacobeo Galicia. Mosquera is relatively unknown outside of Spain, but always rides a good Vuelta and could pull something out of the bag tomorrow.
Finally, here’s a clip from 1999, when the late Chava Jiménez beat Pavel Tonkov to become the first rider to win on the mountain.
