The 48th Tour of the Basque Country, supposedly one of the toughest and most hard-fought bike races in the international calendar, seems to be almost "freezed", and not (just) because of bad weather and low temperatures, but due to the superiority of Alberto Contador and the Astana team. None of the other possible contenders took advantage of the opportunity to try and topple the "race monarch" the first five stages provided them with, and today's 162-kilometre leg from Vitoria-Gasteiz into Orio town, featuring three second category climbs and one third category ascent, but notably the uphill finish at Orio, basically was no exception to the rule.
Yes, somehow they tried today, but it happened only in the very last portion of the stage, and with little or no success at all: too little, too late. Plus, Contador is in great form, and if it had not been for another world-class cyclist such as Damiano Cunego, first across the line today and getting more and more on-form as the Giro d'Italia kickoff gets closer, as usual, (too bad that he's NOT going to race the Corsa Rosa this year, eheh ...), he would have sealed his domination of the race with yet another stage success.
Keeping up a recent race tradition, also Friday's stage was marred by cloudy skies, rain and wind, taking toll on the bunch. The early portion of the ride was peppered with breakaway attempts: Ivan Santaromita (Ita - Liquigas) and Igor Astarloa (Spa - Team Milram) gave it a try first, later it was Matej Mugerli (Slo - Liquigas), Kanstantin Siutsou (Blr - Team High Road) and Andriy Grivko (Ukr - Team Milram). But the gap was made for real only when Mugerlj and Grivko attacked again at kilometre 69, this time alongside the Basque Egoi Martínez, doing his best to strengthen his position atop the KOM classification but also make up for Euskaltel's poor tally so far in the contest, and the climber Bernhard Kohl (Aut - Gerolsteiner).
The Ukrainian unfortunately punctured soon later, and Mugerlj was rapidly dropped too, so that just two guys remained on the front 77 km. into the stage. Still, the former Discovery man and the former T-Mobile rider were not allowed to build a significant lead. Sandy Casar of Paris and FdJ attacked the field, that split in two halves on the alto de Alkiza descent, and started his solo attempt to close down on the Lasterketa Burua. He was not going to succeed though.
The gap increased to two minutes at the Andoain meta volante with about 50 km. left, but stopped growing as a few guys from Lampre and Saunier Duval-Scott joined Astana at the front of the peloton, and quickly kept coming down, slowly but steadily, since. There was room enough for Martínez to pick up more and more King of the Mountain points at the summit of Santa Ageda, Alto de Alkiza and Alto de Aia, and for the Austrian to have his slice of glory at the aforementioned Andoain sprint, but despite perfect cooperation between them their hopes to get the biggest prize of the day vanished with about 20 kilometres to go. Efforts from the "Red Bird" squad, driving the 40-strong peloton that brought them back, proved crucial in this sense.
With (what was left of) the main peloton together again, a new, key part of the stage (and race) began on the short - 1,800 metres - but daaaaaaaamn demanding - 11.5 percent as average gradient, 18% as maxium gradient - Alto de Aia. Caisse d'Epargne lifted the pace in order to make things harder for Contador, but the Astana leader was always up to the challenge. The battle started as Joaquín Rodríguez finally made a move, but the yellow jersey himself looked after covering it. Still, this mountain monster and the skirmishes it generated succeeded in breaking the field apart; some riders even had to walk their way to the summit, others stayed in the saddle only thanks to the unrequested help from some "fans" who pushed them. Cadel Evans and Franck Schleck didn't have such kind of problems however: they joined Contador and Rodríguez to set up a 4-man lead group with the finish line about 10 km. away.
Thimgs stayed fluid on the descent into Orio, made dangerous by the slippery road. Thomas Dekker and Damiano Cunego (re)joined the front group; David Herrero, Mikel Astarloza, Davide Rebellin and a few others also did next. Euskaltel's Astarloza even gave it a shot at going away solo with 4k remaining. In vain. A dozen riders were in the front group as it went under the flamme rouge, but Contador had enough of their company and attacked in the last hundred metres.
Someone was strong good enough to follow his move this time. Someone going under the name of Damiano Cunego, who proved faster than the Spaniard in the two-man battle over stage victory, and took line honours clocking 04h02'48". Dekker, Kirchen, Rebellin and Joaquín Rodriguez filled in the other top six spots at 05 seconds. Still, they were credited with the same finishing time as the top two finishers. Ezequiel Mosquera, supposed to be Contador's most dangerous overall challenger until today's stage, came in seventh at 16". Maxime Monfort, Mikel Astarloza and Igor Anton made the top ten of the day complete, and Chris Horner rode to a solid 11th place finish, 22 seconds behind the stage winner. Cadel Evans snatched 14th.
Riccardo Riccó and David Herrero were the next victims of the weather as they fell in the last kilometre; the latter even badly hit his collarbone. Damiano Cunego wore the txapela (the typical Basque hat) on the podium today, and Contador put the yellow jersey on his shoulders once more. The man from Madrid now leads Cunego, Kirchen, Rebellin, Dekker, Herrero - still atop the points classification - and a few more, amongst whom skilled TTist Cadel Evans, by eight seconds, with only tomorrow's race decider - an individual challenge against the clock of some 20 kilometres running around Orio - between himself and the final podium. At their turn Rabobank lead Saunier by 58 seconds in the team standings, by the way.
After-race Comments
"I want to dedicate this success to my compañeros, that have worked a lot" said Damiano Cunego to a Basque TV journalist. "To win a stage here is a special thing. In my five times at this race I was able to get some good placings and come close to stage victory, but never got any until today. Today was an unusual (day in the saddle) though, because of the cold and the rain. And regarding the impressive (Alto de Aia) climb, I didn't know that ascent, but managed to stay with Schleck, Contador and all the best ones, and in the end I gave it a go at winning and everything went fine. It was a pity that Patxi (Vila) couldn't stay with me, but in conditions like today's even a 30-second deficit is something hard to make up for".
Asked about his overall chances in the contest, The Little Prince said that he might try something in tomorrow's stage, but "all I want to do now is celebrate today's victory". Last but not least, the man from Verona admitted that, as an Italian, he regrets not taking part in the forthcoming Giro, and hopes he'll be back to his country's Grand Tour (which he won in the year 2004, btw) soon. But his big target in the current season is Le Tour, and now he just wants to focus himself on that.
Next in front of the Euskal Telebista cameras was Alberto Contador. The GC leader agreed with Cunego on the toughness of today's race, because of both the weather conditions and the Alto de Aia slopes, commenting further, that the last climb was a bit too short and far from the line for his (and Joaquín Rodriguez's) move to make a solid gap and bear fruit.
Questioned about his own overall chances and tomorrow's ITT, he said that first of all his Vuelta balance is positive anyway, with one stage win and five days as race leader already in the bag. Sure a victory in the GC would be truly welcomed, also as a way to pay his teammates back for the extraordinary job they've done all through the event; plus, he likes TTs like tomorrow's. But much would depend on his condition come Saturday afternoon. Contador picked Cadel Evans and David Herrero as most dangerous rivals tomorrow, but knows well that they're not the only guys he should watch out for.
www.dailypeloton.com / www.marca.com
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