Road Cycling
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A very strange day. The peloton gave Ben O'Connor a win by 6.31 - he's much too dangerous a rider to gift that much time. He now leads Roglic by 4.51 and Primoz & Co will likely have a long hard battle to claw that time back.
George finished with the reduced peloton. Some "sort of" good news for him personally is that his team mate Riccitello didn't (edit: just read he had a crash so that's not good).
Israel Premiertch started the race with three protected riders - Riccitello, Michael Woods and George.
Woods lost time on the first mountain stage and is 3.5 minutes behind George, while Riccitello is 7 minutes behind. If they're going to continue to ride for GC then George has surely become the de facto team leader - for now, anyway.
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What is more bizarre is that the Vuelta was won in exactly this fashion last year on stage six.
Roglic must be a very slow learner.
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@Chester-Draws said in Road Cycling:
What is more bizarre is that the Vuelta was won in exactly this fashion last year on stage six.
Roglic must be a very slow learner.
Getting in, chasing, and losing that break also cooked on of his domestiques. Bora looked short of help today and they’ll all need good legs when they get to the mountains.
Kuss was a fucking legend chasing Soler to get Wout back in contention for the stage. It was a huge effort from a GC guy on the flat.
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Stage 9 and Adam Yates did a Ben O'Connor to bring himself somewhat back into the equation - as did Carapaz. UAE needed to do something after Almeida dropped out of contention yesterday and dropped out of the race with covid today.
O'Connor was able to ride with the small Roglic group - Mas was able to break away from that group on the final climb, but it wasn't a mountain top finish and they reeled him back in on the flat after a descent.
George had a mechanical right at the bottom of the final climb and lost 3 minutes on Roglic.
Shades of the Giro if a few years ago. I guess we'll never know whether he could have ridden with that group - in theory the climb might have suited him - but potentially being about 10th turns into 16th.
GC
O'Connor
Roglic
Carapaz
Mas
Landa
Lipowitz
Yates
Gall -
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@gt12 Yeah - he didn't have a great day - O'Connor even made a few seconds on him in the sprint bonus points.
That's why I'm annoyed about George - guys he finished with the previous day - Lipowitz and Gall were able to ride with Primoz!
Lots of big mountains to come and none of the teams able to exert a lot of control so plenty to come.
Did you see Enric Mas save himself on the descent. Lucky lad! Should be covered in gravel rash!
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@Chris-B said in Road Cycling:
@gt12 Yeah - he didn't have a great day - O'Connor even made a few seconds on him in the sprint bonus points.
That's why I'm annoyed about George - guys he finished with the previous day - Lipowitz and Gall were able to ride with Primoz!
Lots of big mountains to come and none of the teams able to exert a lot of control so plenty to come.
Did you see Enric Mas save himself on the descent. Lucky lad! Should be covered in gravel rash!
I can understand why cycle pants are generally black.
You'd need a change after looking out over that drop.
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holy shit!!
that's a lucky run off! if that's not there he's over that barrier
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George's turn to pull an "O'Connor/Yates".
Pulls back 4.04 on OÇonnor and moves up to 10th overall. Interestingly, though, he says his priority is more a stage win than a high GC placing. The guy in 6th place is only 23 seconds ahead!
Roglic, Mas & Co made up 40 seconds on Ben O'Connor - so the GC battle definitely still all on.
'A horrible dynamic' - George Bennett praises teammates' hard work in massive Vuelta a España breakaway
New Zealander disappointed at failure to claim stage win but moves into top ten
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@gt12 Some sort of sadist must make up the Vuelta route. The remaining stages are:
Hilly
Mountain
Medium Mountain
Mountain
Rest day
Mountain
Medium mountain
Medium moutain
Hilly
Mountain
Time trialAnything can happen. For a while today, George was in virtual second place.
If he can recover well overnight (and seemed like he didn't have to do too much work in the breakaway) then a top five GC position isn't far away.
Mas and Roglic appear to be the strongest riders in the race - but, neither of their teams nor AG2R seem to be able to control breakaways so someone could easily burgle this Vuelta (as O'Connor may have done already - but, he's possibly played his hand too soon).
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Castrillo from the Kern wildcard team won overnight - four guys chasing him played silly buggers (Nico Roche especially pointing the finger at Marc Soler) and left their run too late. Looked like they made up 20 seconds in the last km, but Castrillo had 27 seconds!
GC contenders (including George) all finished in a group of 20 about 7 minutes behind - a bit of a late burst whittling down the peloton - but, no serious attacks.
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Roglic pencilled his name onto the red jersey on Stage 13. He hasn't taken it yet, but he was much the strongest rider on the final climb. Ben O'Connor, George and Mas all lost chunks of time. O'Connor lost nearly 3 minutes to Roglic, who is now within easy striking distance - just 80 seconds behind. Mas tried to go with Primoz and eventually paid for it - losing a minute and finishing behind a number of others.
My hope that George was in a rich vein of form and might be able to ride with the best riders if he got a clear run got blown out of the water. He was the weakest of the top 10 - lost a minute on O'Connor - and slipped to 12th. His team mate - Michael Woods - won the stage from the breakaway.
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Roglic makes up a bit more ground on O'Çonnor - who does a pretty good job of defending the jersey. Roglic just 63 seconds behind. Haven't looked at the ITT course, but must be getting into territory that Primoz would be confident of making up the difference on the last day. Still much to happen before then.
George rolled the dice and tried to bridge across to the breakaway. I haven't seen that bit yet - but, he apparently had to put in a lot of work - cracked on the final climb and lost 20 minutes.
Castrillo from the wildcard team won his second stage - managed to pull away from and then hold off Alexander Vlasov. Surprising!
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It is an odd climb, because the really steep bits are mixed with some very gentle parts. Downhill even. The 24% was only a tiny bit and the average, even for the last three km, was a lot lower..
The first guys over the line looked absolutely blown and made it look totally brutal. When Roglic went over he didn't look anything like that though.
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@Chester-Draws said in Road Cycling:
It is an odd climb, because the really steep bits are mixed with some very gentle parts. Downhill even. The 24% was only a tiny bit and the average, even for the last three km, was a lot lower..
The first guys over the line looked absolutely blown and made it look totally brutal. When Roglic went over he didn't look anything like that though.
That’s a very fair point, I think the mist made it look even more hellish.
