Kaixo, lagunak!

Welcome, friends!

The race's prologue was wet and dangerous, as expected. Rain had made the final trajectory rather slippery, and we saw a lot of domestiques taking it very easy in the ultimate corner. Despite all this, we survived the day without major crashes, which is always a plus in Vuelta opening stages!

The early lead went to Sky rider Dylan van Baarle, whose initial challengers all seemed to be either compatriots or teammates. Lars Boom (Lotto NL) started strong, but lost a lot of time in the second half of the course, while Spanish champion Jonathan Castroviejo finished just over Van Baarle's time. An early hit on the GC front came for Richie Porte, who is still recovering from his ilness of the past few days and finished 51 seconds down on teammate and stage winner Rohan Dennis.

Eventually, the best placed Basque rider remained Castroviejo in 7th, with Ion Izagirre just a second down in 9th. The Bahrain rider managed to avoid a repeat accident from the 2017 Tour de France, and with two Basque riders in the stage top 10, us fans can be satisfied!

Best placed (stage): Jonathan Castroviejo (7th)
Best placed (GC): Jonathan Castroviejo (7th)
Eguneko Euskara: Fernando Barcelo

Okay, this is cheating a bit right of the gun, but our Eguneko Euskara ("Basque of the Day") wasn't in the Vuelta at all. Instead, Fernando Barcelo impressed in the Tour de l'Avenir in such a fashion that he immedeatly warrants breaking this format. At the start of the second-to-last stage, Barcelo was 1'30" down on the yellow jersey, and the 21-year old attacked at 50km from the finish. On the final climb at 22km from the finish, Barcelo dropped his last break-away companion and increased his lead to 1'40", riding in the virtual leader's jersey. In the end, only the race leader himself and one other managed to haul back time, but Barcelo still took stage honours with his chasers 10 seconds behind. Aupa Fernando! If your team, Murias Euskadi, gets another wild card for La Vuelta next year, you'll be their star rider!

Just to quell the hopes of any sprinter still clinging onto the idea of wearing the red jersey, the second stage of La Vuelta is a rolling one with a punchy finish. The stage starts with a second category climb from the first kilometre, with the first KOM points to be earned after six and a half kilometre at about 5%. Large sectors of the Puerto de Ojen run around 8% though, making this a real leg sapper. After this there's a brief respite for the sprinters, as it's probable a break group will form to take the following third category climbs. 

The finale however is sure to take out the sprinters, finishing on a steep wall at Caminito del Rey. It won't shake up the GC -unless one of the contenders gets caught behind a gap, but the day's victory will belong to the punchers, not the pure sprinters. The final climb is a climb in two parts: the first two kilometers are the most gradual, with a short stretch of flatter terrain before the steep final mur of over 6%. Any late attacker has to be gone by this point, or else the most explosive climbers in the peloton will fight it out among themselves. A Sagan or Van Avermaet might just be in the mix: pure sprinters won't. The actual KOM point is at threehundred metre before the finish. 

Euskara to watch: Eduard Prades

There's several punchy Basques at the start of the race, making this a toss-up between three serious contenders for the day's victory. Despite suiting his charactaristics perfectly, the stage comes a little too early in the race for Omar Fraile, while his teammate Pello Bilbao would prefer the climb to be just a few kilometre longer. Eduard Prades is more on the Sagan side of the sprinter-puncher scale, but could perform well if climbers leave it long enough. Initially I thought Bilbao would have most to gain here: with a descent TT, Pello would have had a chance to grab the red jersey before returning to his duties as a domestique for his team leader Lopez. While his TT was not bad at all, he will not make up 20 seconds to Kwiatkowski today. Assuming most of the real climbers want to leave their powder -somewhat- dry, Prades has got the explosiveness to do what it takes. Aupa Eduard!

Zorte on!