Road Cycling
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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.
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There's some awful ones on the Tour of Turkey, e.g....
Roglic closes to within 5 seconds of O'Connor.
I think Ben is doomed - but, he may hold onto the jersey for another couple of days.
Mas and Carapaz also looming - both able to put a minute on him today - so BOC may do well to hold onto a podium place.
George shedding big minutes - which hopefully means he's going to have a crack at a stage win. Stages 18 and 19 look like stages that might suit him if he got away in break.
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Meant to say yesterday that I thought last night's stage might have been one for Corbin Strong - since Wout Van Aert has withdrawn - especially if Corbin got over the mountains and Kaden Groves didn't.
Kaden did - and won - Corbin got beaten by several others in any case.
Got to think Corbin has the tools to win a Grand Tour stage at some point.
BOC keeps the red jersey and probably a decent chance of doing the same tonight - though five seconds is a wafer thin margin. Looks like a couple of small climbs at the end tonight that might let Roglic gap him. They might also suit George in a breakaway - though I think tomorrow (Stage 19) might suit George in a breakaway more - 8km steep climb to a mountain finish.
Stage 20 will be a killer - 7 climbs - 3 Category 1.
