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Published on Saturday, 26 August 2017 16:08

Vuelta Stage  9

Orihuela to Cumbre del. Sol

Sunday 27th August, 174kms 

A flat run along the stunning Levante coast for 125kms before they turn inland and on to the loop that takes them over the finishing hill in Cumbre del. Sol twice in the last 45kms. Flat and boring for 125kms, but with a tough, exciting finish. 

The Vuelta paid a visit to the Alto de Puig Llorenca just two years ago, when Tom Dumoulin powered his way to victory ahead of Chris Froome and Joaquim Rodriguez. That stage was almost an identical map and profile to this one, they started that time though in Torrevieja, on the coast, whereas this one starts in Orihuela 34kms inland, but almost level with it. That stage was 168kms, this one is 174kms, but they did the exact same loop at the finish with two ascents of the Alto de Puig Llorença.

Froome attacked and looked to have the stage in the bag, but Dumoulin came with a ridiculously powerful late surge to pip him to the win. Even though the final climb is only 4kms, there were gaps all over the place and a number of GC men lost significant amounts of time, such as Esteban Chaves, who lost 57" to Froome, Nairo Quintana who lost 18" and Fabio Aru who lost 14". Have a watch of the video below, it's well worth it, this is a superb finish. 

Stage 8 Review

It took 35kms for the break to go, but eventually a strong break of 21 riders got away that contained some strong climbers including Majka, Pauwels, Monfort, Buchmann, Losada, Niemiec and Alaphilippe.. But unfortunately for the break's chances Nelson Oliveira (@ 3'03") and Jan Polanc (@ 4'00") were also in the break so you'd have thought Sky were never going to let them get too far ahead. But they did, far enough for the break to fight out the win.

Julian Alaphilippe and Rafal Majka traded blows all the way up the final climb, while Jan Polanc was dropped, and got back on no fewer than 4 times on the final climb, with the final catch being right before the finish, shooting past the other two to the front. But Alap easily won the sprint to land yet another stage win for Quickstep this year and yet another weekend Vuelta win for them, they make a habit of this.

As for the GC men - Woods and Contador started trying to ride away on the climb, Froome came back at them and then just rode away from them all, with only Contador able to stay with him. They pulled out a 17" gap on Nibali, Aru, Zakarin and Chaves, with Yates, Woods, Roches, Van Garderen and De La Cruz a further 11" back. Froome was impressive once again, but so too was Contador, looking to be in trouble coming to the top of the climb, but suddenly was right there with Froome again starting the descent.

Froome now leads by 28" from Chaves, with Roche sitting in 3rd, 41" back. Nibali and Van Garderen are the only two riders within a minute of him and it is looking more and more like a certainty for Froome now to take this overall. It's just a pity Contador had lost so much time earlier in the race

The Route

Not a lot to say about the route for 125kms, they hug the Levante coastline as they head north-east, where only the wind could cause anything of interest to happen. It is going to be an easterly wind, as is mostly the case here, but it will only get up to 7-8mph, so they shouldn't have too much to worry about wind-wise. 

With 125kms gone they reach Moraira and turn inland to start on to the final loop that goes north in to the countryside above Cumbre Del Sol. They head anti-clockwise and start climbing the hill to the finish line, the Alto de Puig Llorença with 128.9kms done. The first time up it it's a Cat 2 climb, which averages 9.2% for 3.2kms, but they don't quite go all the way to the top first time around, diverting around it and they start descending back down towards the coast again. 

The intermediate sprint comes with 14kms to go, so there is a high likelihood that the break will have been caught by then, but with a passage of the Alto already done, it's unlikely we'll see many sprinters left in there to fight it out, we might see a GC scrap for the seconds... From there the road starts to wind its way gently uphill again as they head back towards CDS, and start on the final pull to the line with 4.1kms to go.

This time around it's a Cat 1 climb, as it's a little bit longer, but also as it is as the end of the stage and not with 42kms to go. It averages 8.9% this time as the last kilometre now averages 7%, pulling down the overall. As they are climbing up the road from first time around, this time they turn left with 800m to go and go through two tight hairpins before it straightens up for the last 500m, climbing all the way to the line.                                  

Contenders and Favourites

Well as we saw last time around, this is most definitely a brute of a climb, one that will probably have the GC men fighting it out for stage victory. Of course, the break will go, and they'll build up a nice lead, and we've seen far too many times in the last two years that GC teams seem to not care about stage wins, they're only interested in the GC, allowing far too many breaks get away and stay away. It makes punting on it very hard as you're just throwing darts at 100 guys rather than trying to pick who has the best chance on a finish like this.

But I still think the likes of Sky, Trek, Orica and Cannondale will look to keep the lead short enough so as to catch them before the intermediate sprint. And as we saw last time around, it's a hill for the likes of Chris Froome, but the stage was ultimately won by someone who was not considered a world-class climber at the time, Tom Dumoulin. So power and strength could keep you in touch for a shot at the power sprint to the line.

I think it will be a GC day finally today, it's prime time Sunday viewing, a prestgious first proper summit finish, the big guys will want to take this. And Chris Froome has to be a key player in this stage you'd have to think, given his dominance yesterday. He almost won it last time up, he was beaten by the metronomic power of Dumoulin who came back at him and beat in the final metres. If he goes hard tomorrow there will be very few who will be able to stick with him and he has the kick to beat most of these guys.

I can see Moscon and Puccio ripping it up again at the bottom of the hill in the really steep parts, they will blow it apart and there might only be 10 or 15 guys left in the race with 3kms to go. Poels will then take over for a kilometre maybe, stripping out the likes of Simon Yates, Louis Meintjes and maybe even the likes of Nibali, Roche and Zakarin with the furious pace. Then Froome will turn on the after-burners with 2kms to go and blast away from all bar maybe Chaves and Contador. And even if they go with him, Froome has a good chance of beating them to the line with this steep finish. 

But of course it isn't going to be that straight-forward, Froome has displayed some signs of weakness this year on steep slopes and wasn't really able to go over the top of Contador on stage 6. Also, if Sky go hard at the bottom, then Froome could well find himself on his own with 2-3kms to go and open to attack. And also, if he comes to the finish with a few with a better sprint he might be bettered.

Alberto Contador seems to be getting stronger and stronger and has been dancing up the hills in his trademark style lately, and once again he was the only rider able to stay with Froome when he went hard. He wasn't in the race in 2015 when Froome was doing battle with Dumoulin, but Rodriguez was 3rd, a similar sort of rider to Bertie. This is a climb that should suit him a lot too and I'd be amazed if we didn't see him try something. I wouldn't be surprised either if Bertie had a team-mate up the road, like Pantano to try to bridge up to on his way. 

Esteban Chaves should be right on Froome's wheel like on the finish to Alcossebre, but can he counter attack this time and leave him behind? He wouldn't have the power of Dumoulin, but he has the speed and the lightness to skip up this hill. He goes well on punchy finishes like this as we know, and if there is any sign of weakness in Froome at all, I think he's in the best place to take advantage, and the stage could well be his. 

Michael Woods - will he be forever the nearly man? Does he not know how to ride the finish of a race at all? I think we've given him enough chances, I'm not sure he really is good enough for this quality of opposition any more. He once again today seemed to be doing well and then just disappeared losing 28" to Froome by the finish. He will be top ten, he'll mark Froome and Chaves as much as he can, but I don't think any more he's good enough to win at this level.

4th that last time up here in 2015 was Fabio Aru, but we are yet to see him really come alive in this race and he has been having trouble just holding on to the likes of Froome and Chaves so far. He did ok today, finishing in the Nibali group just 11" behind Froome. He got caught for pace on the steeper parts again but recovered later on to finish strongly. He was only 16" back last time up here, he seemed to go pretty well until Froome and Dumoulin stepped on the gas, I think it will be the same here, he's good enough for a top 10, but maybe not top 3 so is no bet at just XX

Tejay Van Garderen might find this one a bit too hot for him, I think he'll be dropped in the last 2kms, but Nicholas Roche went well here last time up, finishing in 8th, just 31" behind Dumoulin. He should be right up there fighting for his top ten place, but he won't be winning it, or even placing in the top 3 I think.

Ilnur Zakarin, Wilko Kelderman, Pozzovivo, Bardet - all should be there or thereabouts but suffered quite a lot in the last few stages, although Zakarin seemed to go a lot better today than in recent days.

And what about the break? Well Julian Alaphilippe said that he thought tomorrow's stage suited him better than this one today, and that QuickStep's winning 'wasn't over yet' - he might fancy another go tomorrow, but I think that it is too much of an ask for him to take it, it was a hard stage today with a really hard battle against Majka in the finish, it will be tough for him to go again, and take another win. And he's just 11/1, too short for me. If he gets in a break, he'll still be 5/1 and you can take that instead. 

And of course there's another 50 guys who could go up the road - with the news breaking tonight that Cannondale might not exist next year, we could see those guys riding out of their skin for the next two weeks trying to secure a contract with a new team for next year. Toms Skujins, Joe Dombrowski (is he actually at the race??), Tom Scully etc - they might all want to have a dig tomorrow. We saw the dramatic effect losing IAM as a sponsor had to their riders, they bloody cleaned up for the rest of the season. I don't think any of them are capable of winning tomorrow, but will keep an eye on them for later. 

Marc Soler seems to be very short every day, maybe one day he'll get in a break and do something. Thomas de Gendt, Alexander Geniez, Rafal Majka again, Davide Villella of Cannondale - all might be fighting for the KOM points tomorrow, or maybe it's finally the day we see Omar Fraile start his charge? He has been ill, like a lot of the DD team, but maybe he has recovered like Majka and is ready to do his thing? I think he might wait for a day with more points out on the road. 

Darwin Atapuma could also go for the KOM points, but there's a lot of flat road before the Cat 2 so he might think it's not worth all that waste of energy for just a handful of points. Alex Lutsenko is a bit more of a rouleur so he might fancy it, and the likes of Bart de Clercq, Maxime Monfort, Jan Polanc, Matej Mohoric and others like that who look to be in good form could try again. 

But I really think tomorrow will be all about Chris Froome - he's already starting to crush his rivals and is in to 1/5 now to win the race, I think he'll look to totally crush them tomorrow with a win and more of a time gain. One bet, Chris Froome to win. 

Recommendations:

3pts win on Chris Froome at 5/1 with Will Hill

Matchbets:

Nibali to beat De La Cruz, Pozzo to beat Bardet and Chaves to beat Woods - 2pts at 5/2 with Will Hill

Roche to beat Kelderman - 2pts at 5/6 with 365

Yates to beat TVG and Aru to beat Zakarin - 2pts at 13/8 with Will Hill