Not even the five difficulties, four of which situated in the second half of the stage, the parcours had in store for the 146 riders who showed up at start town Viana stopped Thursday's fourth leg of the Euskal Herriko txirrindulari itzulia, that finished into Vitoria (Gasteiz in the local language, the political capital of three Spanish provinces comprising the Basque region) after a journey of 162 km, from coming down to the traditional field sprint. But they came daaaamn close this time. The Luxembourgian sprinter Kim Kirchen (Team High Road) notched up his second victory in the 2008 edition of the contest, and Alberto Contador wore the overall leader's yellow jersey also on the podium after the stage. But the race was absolutely unusual, and had a really bizarre outcome.
But let's start at the very beginning. One more time the stage got off to a flying start. Jorge Azanza and Ivan Velasco tried to make the headlines for Euskaltel-Euskadi, so far quite disappointing in their home race. But the Spanish pair and fellow early attacker Alexander Botcharov (Rus - Crédit Agricole) were allowed to stay clear for a very short time only. The same happened to another "orange warrior", Egoi Martínez, on the move alongside Jérémy Roy (Fra - Française Des Jeux), Xabier Zandio (Spa - Caisse D'Epargne) and Daniele Righi (Ita - Lampre). Despite the addition of helpers Tom Stubbe (Bel - Française Des Jeux) and Koos Moerenhout (Hol - Rabobank) the front group couldn't go too far either.
Well, not all of them were reeled in: Tom Stubbe managed to ride away from the others, and his chances to make the "breakaway of the day" got bigger as he was joined by four more escapees: the Australian national champion jersey holder Matthew Lloyd (Silence-Lotto), the Italian Morris Possoni (High Road), on the attack for the second day running, his compatriot Dario Cataldo (Liquigas) and - of course - one Basque knight, Amets Txurruka.
One more time, once the gap was made, it didn't take long for the frontrunners to build up a significant margin: Stubbe, Lloyd, Possoni, Cataldo and Txurruka, working perfectly with each other, were leading the bunch by three minutes at the km. 35 check. After that, and still following in the footsteps of what happened in previous stages, their advantage basically kept yo-yoing for some time as the peloton got a little more serious about the chase, but not too much. With the "Red Bird" team Saunier Duval taking matters into their hands, but Astana not cooperating, the gap was down to two minutes on the toughest - and coming too early - climb of the day, the first category Alto de La Herrera (Possoni won the points there) but kept growing again later.
The rain falling over much of Europe these days made a brief comeback to the race. Brief, but long enough to have a devastating impact on Paolo Bettini: the World Champion fell - for the umpteenth time in the last two years - while coming down the Alto de Herrera and was forced out of the race. Amets Txurruka took revenge on Possoni at the top of the next climb (Zaldiaran) and was first across the line also at the Vitoria hot spot sprint. His victory at Vitoria was followed by a victory at Alto de Vitoria, as the Basque took the KOM prime from Possoni and Stubbe, with the gap still hovering around two and a half minutes.
Then Astana took up the chase at last, and the advantage started its decline for real. It was two minutes in the flat portion that came with 50 kilometres left, 01'30" around the 35-km-to-go banner, and a mere, little sixty seconds a dozen miles from the finish, with the sun trying to elbow its way through the clouds and some more rain rapidly kicking it out of the race. In the meantime, the front group had been downgraded to quartet as Dario Cataldo had lost contact, Morris Possoni had won the meta volante at Treviño and Lloyd the Aussie stamped his authority on the third category Alto de San Martin Zar.
The bunch was on their heels, but not that much, and the finish line was getting closer; so, as predictable, cooperation amongst the escapees ended in the last ten kilometres, while taking on the last ascent of the day (Alto de Zaldiaran. again): Lloyd started the fireworks, and only Txurruka countered his move. But when the Aussie picked up the pace again, the Basque had to give up. For a while at least, for Possoni came to his (and his own) rescue and both guys regained Lloyd's wheel in the last descent, 6.7 km.from the finish.
Astana apparently weren't too hungry to ride their legs off in the pursuit, neither any other teams were, and the gap was still a decent 35 seconds as the stage entered the five closing kilometres. This boosted the morale of the three frontrunners, back to helping each other and flying on the flat roads into Vitoria/Gasteiz at 65 kph, but despite all efforts they put in their chances got slimmer as the gap was down to 12" under the red pennant.
The last thousand metres were truly epic and dramatic: Possoni, Lloyd and Txurruka perhaps turned back a bit too many times, and Possoni maybe launched his sprint a bit too late. But they never gave up, and at some point it looked like the Italian was going to make it ... but, but ... but paradoxically and cruelly enough, after staying clear almost all-day long, Morris and the two others were captured in the veeeeery last few metres. Well, in fact, only one rider caught Possoni and denied him the joy of victory. And it was a teammate of his!!!!!!!!!! Yep, Kim Kirchen won the stage ahead of Possoni, with David Herrero ... back to the place he belongs to (he scored his third-place finish in four days!!!). Lloyd took fourth and Txurruka snatched a solid seventh place result.
In his first after-race statements Kirchen, talking in fluent Italian, "apologised" to his team-mate: "He deserved to win, but I'm a young rider, and you just can't ask me to give up my chances of victory when I'm given some, you know. Had I realized it was Possoni that was going to win, I would have stopped myself". Will Possoni believe and "forgive" him? hmmm ...
We don't know about that, but there's one thing we can tell you for sure: any would-be "peacekeeper" inside Team High Road is not going to have a easy time tonight ...
www.dailypeloton.com and www.publico.es
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