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Förster wins Vuelta stage as Valverde stays in gold
Sunday’s mostly downhill 182km run from Spain’s central plateau to the sunny Mediterranean coast went according to script, with a brave breakaway falling short and German ace Robert Forster winning a frenetic mass sprint.
The Gerolsteiner rider outkicked Stuart O’Grady (CSC) to take the first mass gallop in a week while Alejandro Valverde (Caisse d’Epargne) retained his 48-second grip on the overall leader’s jersey.
“It was very dangerous,” said Forster, who won the final stage of the Giro d’Italia this year. “I thought that Petacchi would make the sprint and that is why we tried to get there. With 700 meters to go I was on (Danilo) Napolitano’s wheel and then he started sprinting with 300 meters to go. It was a bit long but I started mine 150 meters before the finish line and it worked out perfectly.”
Fred Rodriguez (Davitamon-Lotto) sprang to his best result of this Vuelta, finshing ninth, while Chris Horner (Davitamon-Lotto) was 21st.
After a chaotic week of breakaways, attacks and uncontrolled racing, the Vuelta a España returned to relative normalcy in a transition stage that carries the peloton to Monday’s rest day and into the final decisive week.
Jorge García (Relax-GAM) bravely marched off the front within the first 10km and was duly reeled in with about 15km to go under pressure from Crédit Agricole and Quick Step-Innergetic.
Milram drove it home to the finish stretch at the giant Ford factory outside Valencia, but Erik Zabel flatted with about 2.5km to go and Alessandro Petacchi – back in racing action after breaking his kneecap in May’s Giro d’Italia - was closed off in a sweeping left turn with about 500 meters to go by Lampre’s Claudio Corioni to spoil his chances for a comeback sprint victory.
Forster took advantage of a chaotic finish that saw the main pack fracture in the closing kilometers to win for the sixth time this season.
“Now I’ve won stages in the Giro and Vuelta, I want to win one in the Tour,” he said. “Before this stage, I thought I was going to stop at the end of the Vuelta. Maybe now I will go to Franco Belge and start Paris-Tours, but I think next week is hard enough and perhaps I will stop my season at the end then.”
Most of the top GC contenders finished among the top 47, but several bigger names lost the wheel in the final run to the finish and lost some time.
Most notable was José Gomez Marchante (Saunier Duval), who remained fifth despite losing 17 seconds. Others in the Marchante group were Tom Danielson (Discovery Channel) and Danilo Di Luca (Liquigas). Vladimir Karpets (Caisse d’Epargne) lost 25 seconds.
Valverde seemed relieved to put the lid on the second full week of racing. With just six days of La Vuelta left, he’s feeling more confident that his first grand-tour victory is in sight.
“Just like these days always go, it was tranquilo at the start, but quite nervous in the finish. You always have to be fighting to keep your position,” Valverde said. “We’ve done two weeks, tomorrow’s the rest day and we’ll see how it goes in the final week.”
Rest for the weary
Some 15 riders from Astana and Ag2r were tested before the start of Sunday's stage and all were cleared to continue racing by UCI's “vampires.” Two riders – Astana’s Alexandre Vinokourov and Andrey Kashechkin - missed the call between 7:30-8 a.m. because they had left with the team bus toward the start in Motilla del Palancar, some 70km away from the team hotel on small roads.
Team director Herminio Díaz Zabala told Spanish television that the two Kazakhs went early on the team bus to sleep on the hour-plus drive to the start while the other riders were scheduled to go in team cars.
“We were all set to go in the team cars and were just waiting for a late rider when they arrived to make the controls. They wanted the team bus to come back, but had we done that, no one would have made it to the start on time,” he said. “We are open to the tests, but at the same time, they need to do the tests in respect to the riders, not the other way around.”
The day began with a series of attacks, driven in large part by the sole continental team in the peloton, the Relax-GAM squad. Several efforts proved fruitless until the 7km mark when Kjell Carlström (Liquigas) joined up with Relax’s Jorge García. The two built up an eight-minute lead, but Carlström faded, being caught at 101km and leaving García alone off the front at 133km with a six-minute lead.
With the sprinters hungry for a chance to go for a stage win for the first time in a week, García’s move was doomed from the start. Crédit Agricole and Lampre did most of the heavy lifting. The mostly downhill run toward the huge car factory made for easy pickings for the main pack and García was duly reeled in with about 15 to go.
“You have to try every day, because eventually your hard work will be rewarded,” García said. “I knew today would be complicated with the profile, but I have good memories of this region and I wanted to give it a try. We’ll keep attacking.”
The stage saw two riders not taking the start in what’s expected to be a fairly strong move toward the exit door for riders looking ahead to the world championships later this month.
Davide Rebellin (Gerolsteiner) and Ruggero Marzoli (Lampre) – both candidates for Italy’s national team – didn’t start. Rebellin was especially keen on winning a stage and featured in many breakaways, but things just didn’t go well for the veteran Italian.
Team CSC's Fabian Cancellara was also expected to pull out of the Vuelta, most likely after Sunday’s stage. The big Swiss time machine, who narrowly missed a victory in Saturday's TT, said he wants to prepare for the world time trial championships September 21.
“There's nothing for me in the final week of the Vuelta,” Cancellara said. “I helped ‘Carlito’ as much as I could for two weeks and I am feeling stronger every day. I want to win the world title.”
The remaining 156 riders were scheduled to board planes for the 500km flight from Valencia to Almería for the final showdown of the 61st Vuelta.
Monday’s rest day will be followed up by three hard days in the mountains of southern Spain. Tuesday’s 145km 16th stage hits two Cat. 1 climbs en route to the “especial” summit finish at Calar Alto, the highest point in this year’s Vuelta at 2090m.
Both Valverde and Vinokourov have scheduled rest-day press conferences. Vinokourov wasn’t too happy about his time-trial performance Saturday. The Kazakh was predicting he'd take a minute out of Valverde – instead, he could only muster eight seconds, the same amount Valverde won in a time bonus after finishing third in Friday's stage into Cuenca.
“The descent was a little dangerous and I took my precautions to avoid a fall. I see that the others didn't do that,” Vinokourov said. “Things didn't turn out the way I wanted them to, but there's still a lot of Vuelta ahead of us. We have to keep trying to do it.”
Official stage results
1. Robert Förster (G), Gerolsteiner, 4:24:55
2. Stuart O'Grady (Aus), CSC
3. Danilo Napolitano (I), Lampre
4. Thor Hushovd (Nor), Credit Agricole
5. Paolo Bettini (I), Quick Step-Innergetic
6. Aurélien Clerc (Swi), Phonak
7. Aaron Kemps (Aus), Astana
8. Geoffroy Lequatre (F), Cofidis
9. Fred Rodriguez (USA), Davitamon-Lotto
10. Jean-Patrick Nazon (F), Ag2r Prevoyance
FULL RESULTSOverall
1. Alejandro Valverde (Sp), Caisse d'Epargne-I.B., 58:48:23
2. Andrey Kashechkin (Kaz), Astana,at 0:48
3. Carlos Sastre (Sp), CSC, 1:25
4. Alexandre Vinokourov (Kaz), Astana, 1:38
5. J. Angel Gomez Marchante (Sp), Saunier Duval, 2:23
6. Janez Brajkovic (Slo), Discovery Channel, 3:49
7. Vladimir Karpets (Rus), Caisse d'Epargne-I.B., 4:29
8. Danilo Di Luca (I), Liquigas-Bianchi, 4:48
9. Manuel Beltran (Sp), Discovery Channel, 5:03
10. Stijn Devolder (B), Discovery Channel, 7:15
To see how today's stage developed, simply CLICKHERE to bring up our Live Update Viewer.
