Vuelta a Espana 2013 - Stage 17
La Vuelta rolled out of the second rest day, with a stage designed to blow out the cobwebs before the race returns to the steep stuff tomorrow. It was a 189 kilometre stage from Calahorra to Burgos, and was set up as a day for the sprinters, but as always with the Vuelta, surprises could be lurking around the corner at any moment.
A two man breakaway formed early in the stage containing Javier Aramendia (Caja Rural) and Adam Hansen (Lotto-Belisol). The Australian Hansen is riding his seventh successive grand tour, and should he finish this race, he will have finished every grand tour he has ridden since the 2011 edition of the Vuelta a Espana.
Hansen led over the third category Alto de Pradilla, then a comedy moment occurred in the peloton. Nico Sijmens of Cofidis was sent up the road to mop up the one remaining point to save teammate and King of the Mountains leader Nicolas Edet some energy. However, this was not told to Edet, who proceeded to sprint up the climb in anticipation of receiving the one point. Hansen also led over the third category Alto de Valmala, and this time there was a scheduled plan from Cofidis, with Edet being paced up the climb by Sijmens until he jumped away to take the one single point.
Lampre-Merida and Orica-GreenEDGE were teams prominent in chasing down the break, until around 35 kilometres to go, when the teams of the men fighting for general classification came to the front to make sure their leader was protected from impending crosswinds. The peloton then duly split apart into four groups on the road, under the onus of pressure from Saxo-Tinkoff. It soon became apparent that Domenico Pozzovivo, the AG2R La Mondiale rider lying in fifth place was caught on the wrong side of the split, along with seventh place Thibaut Pinot.
Team Saxo-Tinkoff under assistance from Movistar kept the pressure up, wanting to make sure their man Nicolas Roche could go into the mountains in fifth place overall. As ten kilometres to go approached, it was clear that the elastic had snapped, and the Pozzovivo Pinot group were not going to make it back into the peloton.
Despite this the high pace was kept over the uncategorised climb of the Calle Eras de San Francisco. Diego Ulissi of Lampre-Merida put in a brief attack here, and was soon joined by Egoi Martinez of Euskaltel-Euskadi, but both men were brought back soon enough. A couple of digs from Astana kept the pace high on the way into the finish line, where it looked to be going down to a sprint finish.
However, with 500 metres to go Bauke Mollema (Belkin) went early, leaving the sprinters looking at each other, everyone thinking it was too far to go from the finish line. By the time they had reached a suitable time to go, Mollema had too big of a gap, and it was left to him to raise his arms in victory, outfoxing the likes of Tyler Farrar and Edvald Boasson Hagen.
In the general classification, Domenico Pozzovivo and Thibaut Pinot both lost 91 seconds, meaning Nicolas Roche moves into fifth place and has a considerable cushion. The top four didn't change, but changes can be expected once the race re-enters the mountains tomorrow.