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Zabriskie's 161km time trial nets him victory in Vuelta's 11th stage
It’s as predictable as the swallows to Capistrano: Big tour, flat stage, early break, heart-breaking capture and a field sprint. It happens so often that one begins to wonder, why bother? But every now and then one of those early gambles pays off.
This time it was U.S. Postal’s David Zabriskie who hit the jackpot in the 11th stage of the Vuelta a España with an exhausting 161km solo ride to the finish. The win added another to the team’s laurels this Vuelta, as team leader Floyd Landis stayed in the maillot de oro for another day, keeping the jersey in Postal hands, where it’s been since the opening team time trial in León.
Tuesday’s 165.8km stage from San Vicente Del Raspeig to Caravaca de la Cruz was one of those generally flat affairs that ended with a gradual, unrated rise – 400 meters over 30km – to the finish.
With the past few days’ attention focused largely on the battle for the leaders’ jersey, this stage seemed a good chance for the sprinters to fight it out for a win going into Wednesday’s rest day.
Landis began the day with a scant nine-second lead over Spanish cycling’s latest favorite son, Alejandro Valverde, leader of the venerable Comunidad Valenciana-Kelme.
“We might see something from Valverde today,” Postal director Johann Bruyneel said before the start,”‘but really this one is a last chance for Fassa Bortolo to give another to (Alessandro) Petacchi. After this, there isn’t much here for the sprinters the next few days.”
Bruyneel acknowledged that it may only be a matter of time before Kelme, the Liberty Seguros team of defending champion Roberto Heras and Isidro Nozal or the Illes Balears-Banesto squad Francisco Mancebo takes the jersey from Landis.
“And once they have it,” he added, “it’ll be nearly impossible to get it back.”
So as the 163-rider field rolled out of San Vicente Del Raspeig, the predictions were the usual: Maybe an early break, but Fassa would probably shut it down when it counted; maybe some aggressive moves from Kelme, or others, but again, Fassa would do much of the work since Petacchi is still in the hunt to match his five stage wins from last year and, at this point, he only has three.
Sure enough, the attacks started early – just 5km into the stage. The lone attacker, Postal’s Zabriskie, said the move was not the result of some team strategy to take pressure off of Landis.
“There was no plan at all,” Zabriskie said later. “It just happened.”
Plan or no, Zabriskie managed to build a slight advantage over the next 2km when the usual pattern was seriously disrupted. Valverde suddenly hit the deck at kilometer seven, for reasons that are still not entirely clear. A teammate later said that he believed that he had skipped a gear, just as the pace in the field was picking up.
Out of respect for a major GC contender, the peloton slowed as the Kelme leader’s injuries were attended and his bike replaced. Zabriskie, meanwhile, was off on his own, riding as he had before the crash.
“The peloton should wait,” he said. “At that point, I was already off the front. I didn’t try to take advantage of the situation, but at the same time, I was not going to sit up and wait to be caught, either.”
Back on the bike, Valverde was slow to recover as race doctors treated what will surely be a big patch of road rash on his left hip and several smaller abrasions along his leg and arm.
Interviewed during the race, race doctor Juan Maria Irigoyen said the crash was “disheartening to his motivation, but not race-threatening … he should be fine.”
Over the course of the next 30km, Valverde’s demeanor improved and he was soon riding at a steady tempo with his teammates offering words of encouragement.
But ahead, the U.S. national time trial champion was building a formidable advantage: 11:30 at km 36; 14:37 by 43km; and peaking at 18:05 by the 86th kilometer when the peloton finally began to ramp up its speed.
“My motivation was high,” Zabriskie later recounted. “I haven’t really ridden much for two years, so.…”
It was just as the 2003 season was picking up when Zabriskie, on a training ride west of Salt Lake City, Utah, had a near head-on collision with an SUV. The Postal rider suffered a broken leg and wrist and underwent surgery for both.
His cautious return to the professional peloton came in February at this year’s Tour of Andalucia. Winning the U.S. national time trial title this year capped his return to form.
As Zabriskie motored through the last half of the stage, he looked remarkably relaxed, but was clearly beginning to fade from the effort.
Behind, Fassa Bortolo was taking its predicted place at the front of the field. Soon Cofidis, working for points leader Stuart O’Grady, and Vini Caldirola, pulling for Marco Zanotti, lent horsepower to the effort.
But the charge started just a little too late. Slicing away at Zabriski’s lead, the peloton took back huge chunks of time. By the 10km-to-go mark, the gap had been trimmed to four minutes. Salt stains covering his jersey offered a sign of how tired he was, but Zabriskie continued to pedal smoothly over the closing stretch of the stage.
With a kilometer to go, the peloton was coming in fast, but still two minutes back.
With 200 meters to go, Zabriskie finally allowed himself a look back over his shoulder.
“I had to keep believing all day long that I was going to win it,” he said, “but it wasn’t until the last 200 meters that I was actually sure it was going to happen.”
Attacking 5km into a 165.8km stage is nuts … but sometimes, it actually works.
To see how the race unfolded, simply click our Live Update Window.
