Espainiako Itzulia: Stage 4 recap / Stage 5 preview
August 28, 2018
Kaixo, lagunak!
Welcome, friends!
It's stage four of the Vuelta á Espagna, a grand tour which might lack the history of the Tour de France nor the tifosi of the Giro d'Italia, but there's one thing the Queen of the Indian summer has over the others: the Basques. That's why Badger Baroudeur presents to you a daily stage preview with a special focus on the Cycling Carrots, regardless of which team they ride for. Let's get to it!
Recap: Stage 4
That was a great stage! It's rare to have a real mountain finish this early in a grand tour, and even more rare to have Team Sky without a serious contender to controll the pack for. Mix those factors together, and today is what happens. An early break formed with, as if there were any question about it, Pierre Roland and Luis Angel Mate in it. Others in the break were Lars Boom, Oscar Cabedo, Jelle Wallays, Nikita Stalnov and the Bens' Gasthauer & King. The Basque Country was represented by Aritz Bagües. As no team felt the responsibility to chase, the gap for the escapees increased to almost ten minutes, and as they neared the final climb, Ben King, Nikita Stalnov and Jelle Wallays dropped their companions. Wallays was consequently dropped from the front, while Pierre Roland slowly and painfully tried to bridge to head of the race, barely making contact just in time to finish third behind Stalnov (2nd) and King (1st).
By this time, the pack had been moving fast, with Lotto-Jumbo spurring on. Especially impressive was young Küss, winner of the recent Tour of Utah. As the bumblebees ripped the bunch apart, a group of elite riders was left. It's commendable how long two Euskadi-Murias riders managed to hold on, with both Mikel Bizkara and Mikel Iturria finishing before superdomestiques like Winner Anacona and Sergio Henao and even before GC hopefull Ilnur Zakarin! As the peloton neared the top, Simon Yates was the first to attack, soon followed by Emmanuel Buchmann and M.A. Lopez. By finishing with the rest of the favourites, Ion Izagirre showed today that he's a serious contender for the podium in Madrid. From the original break, Aritz Bagües was the last to avoid being caught by the peloton, earning him the co-honour of being Basque of the Day!
By this time, the pack had been moving fast, with Lotto-Jumbo spurring on. Especially impressive was young Küss, winner of the recent Tour of Utah. As the bumblebees ripped the bunch apart, a group of elite riders was left. It's commendable how long two Euskadi-Murias riders managed to hold on, with both Mikel Bizkara and Mikel Iturria finishing before superdomestiques like Winner Anacona and Sergio Henao and even before GC hopefull Ilnur Zakarin! As the peloton neared the top, Simon Yates was the first to attack, soon followed by Emmanuel Buchmann and M.A. Lopez. By finishing with the rest of the favourites, Ion Izagirre showed today that he's a serious contender for the podium in Madrid. From the original break, Aritz Bagües was the last to avoid being caught by the peloton, earning him the co-honour of being Basque of the Day!
Best placed (stage): Aritz Bagües (15th)
Best placed (GC): Ion Izagirre (5th)
Eguneko Euskara: Bagües & Izagirre
It's one of many editions of "sprinters versus the break" that this Vuelta is going to have. We start with a long stretch of constantly rolling terrain. Two sharp descents, one at Talará (26km) and one at Orgiva (48km) lead the way into the first categorized climb of the day, a third category climb to the summit of Alto Orgiva. It's 4 kilometres at 7%, but it's defining feature is that it doesn't really stand out that much from the rest of the terrain: there's nary a flat metre in sight.
The intermediate sprint at Laujar de Andarax is situated between two uncategorized climbs, and that's before the final climb kicks off: Alto El Marchal packs an average of 4.1%, but keeps that up for almost 11km. Combine that with a long and tiresome day, and there'll be quite some sprinters popping off the back before it's summit at 30km from the finish.
Just after the first mountain stage, in any other race this would have been the perfect transitionairy stage for a breakaway to take. It's summit is too far from the finish to make this a tempting target for GC riders, although the actual descent only ends at 10km from the finish. Despite the flat finish, I don't see the sprinters' teams controlling this without throwing their sprinters out the back, but then again, with so few sprinting chances, they might just try. The final descent can break or make a group of escapees or even a solo attacker - is it too early in the race for a Nibali attack?
Eurskara to Watch: Gorka Izagirre.
Gorka has been losing time over the past few stages, safely positioning himself away from being a GC thread. With the steep climb/descent at the end of the stage, Gorka could seriously disrupt the plans of any sprinting team. Can he do it?
Best placed (GC): Ion Izagirre (5th)
Eguneko Euskara: Bagües & Izagirre
Previes: Stage 5: Granada Roquetas de Mar
It's one of many editions of "sprinters versus the break" that this Vuelta is going to have. We start with a long stretch of constantly rolling terrain. Two sharp descents, one at Talará (26km) and one at Orgiva (48km) lead the way into the first categorized climb of the day, a third category climb to the summit of Alto Orgiva. It's 4 kilometres at 7%, but it's defining feature is that it doesn't really stand out that much from the rest of the terrain: there's nary a flat metre in sight.
The intermediate sprint at Laujar de Andarax is situated between two uncategorized climbs, and that's before the final climb kicks off: Alto El Marchal packs an average of 4.1%, but keeps that up for almost 11km. Combine that with a long and tiresome day, and there'll be quite some sprinters popping off the back before it's summit at 30km from the finish.
Just after the first mountain stage, in any other race this would have been the perfect transitionairy stage for a breakaway to take. It's summit is too far from the finish to make this a tempting target for GC riders, although the actual descent only ends at 10km from the finish. Despite the flat finish, I don't see the sprinters' teams controlling this without throwing their sprinters out the back, but then again, with so few sprinting chances, they might just try. The final descent can break or make a group of escapees or even a solo attacker - is it too early in the race for a Nibali attack?
Eurskara to Watch: Gorka Izagirre.
Gorka has been losing time over the past few stages, safely positioning himself away from being a GC thread. With the steep climb/descent at the end of the stage, Gorka could seriously disrupt the plans of any sprinting team. Can he do it?
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