Vuelta Rest Day #2 Wrap-up and Predictions

A fairly nondescript week of racing in la Vuelta, lots of Spanish sun and short climbs. Ale-Jet won two stages and was followed by three breakaway wins from teams which have so far had poor Vueltas: T-Mobile, Disco, and Euskaltel. The heavily backloaded Vuelta parcours (its all going down in the last 4 stages) has meant only one attack by a GC rider (Sammy Sanchez of Euskaltel) whereas normally, these middle stages contain the epic mountains where the Vuelta is decided. The level-headed Russian Denis Menchov seems to be bulletproof overall, limiting his losses to Sanchez to just 41" and being very attentive on the road to Torre-Pacheco when Caisse suddenly hit the front in the last 40 ks and blew the peloton to pieces. Menchov was right where he needed to be, and didn't waste any energy.

My predictions:

Stage 16:

An undualting stage which will probably end in either a big sprint finish (If the sprinters can get over the Puerto de los Rehoyos within a minute of the leaders) or a small group dash from a long breakaway. I'm taking Petacchi if its a sprint, and I'm not even going to try to predict a specific rider to win from a long break. All I'll say is that Liquigas has been underperforming a bit in this Vuelta....Stage 17:

A pretty much pancake flat stage which will almost certainly end in a sprint finish with Bennati battling Petacchi for the points jersey. One of those men will probably win the stage, as Lampre and Milram respectively will chase down all of the breaks and they have proven themselves the two best sprinters in the race.

Stage 18:

A tough stage before the final foray into the mountains. The GC contenders will be keeping their powder dry for the fireworks on the Abantos the next day. Probably a long breakaway will win the day with a bunch of strong climbers. My pick is Damiano Cunego or Christian Vande Velde.



I'll preview the last 3 stages (19, 20, and 21) tomorrow.