Vuelta a Espana 2013 - Stage 2
La Vuelta had its first road stage today, and it was a testing first day on the open road, 177.7 kilometres from Pontevedra to Monte de Groba. Today was the first out of a mammoth eleven summit finishes in this Vuelta; to put this into context, this year's Tour was considered mountainous, and had just four summit finishes.
It certainly threw up excitement too, perhaps earlier than expected, as Gregory Henderson (Lotto-Belisol) initiated the breakaway ten metres before the stage actually started, attacking in the neutralised zone. He was joined by Alex Rasmussen (Garmin-Sharp) and Javier Aramendia (Caja Rural). The break got over twelve minutes at one point in the stage, before a combined effort of Astana, Lampre and Cannondale, among others, worked to bring them back before the start of the climb proper.
Going into the climb, there was a drag race between virtually all the teams to get to the bottom first, and it was Movistar who were most successful, putting four men infront of Alejandro Valverde. Their fast pace combined with a couple of Astana riders put pay to Samuel Sanchez, the Basque rider was dropped surprisingly early, perhaps putting pay to his overall chances already.
Janez Brajkovic, the red jersey, was having trouble going up the climb, but it was clear soon enough that Nibali was in no difficulty. Sergio Henao, Sky's designated leader, was also then put into the red, and dropped off the back of the still sizeable main group. Interestingly, Rigoberto Uran, Henao's teammate, did not drop back to pace his compatriot, instead choosing to stay in the main group.
It was speculated that the favourites would not fully show themselves so early in the race, and this proved to be correct, as Leopold Konig (Team NetApp-Endura) attacked there was only a response from Daniel Moreno, one of Joaquim Rodriguez's key lieutenants, followed by Nicolas Roche (Team Saxo-Tinkoff) and Domenico Pozzovivo, the diminuitive climber from AG2R La Mondiale.
At first it looked like Konig may hold on for the win, but the trio soon put the work in and caught the young Czech. After more sparring, Roche jumped away, and with 250 metres to go it was clear he wasn't going to be caught. The Irishman sprinted up to the line then zipped up the jersey and raised his arms in celebration, to take a well-deserved win after a season in the services of his team.
In terms of the red jersey battle, Vincenzo Nibali took over the race leadership. The Sicilian may feel this is too early in the race to take up the lead, and it certainly suits Alejandro Valverde and Joaquim Rodriguez, as they can excuse their team of doing much work in the next few stages.