CYCLING TOUR OF SPAIN:IRELAND'S NICOLAS Roche faces a big fight on Saturday's penultimate stage of the Vuelta a España, having slipped back in the general classification of the race yesterday.
The Ag2r La Mondiale rider started the stage in fifth place overall but finished a slightly disappointing 38th in the 46 kilometre time trial in Peñafiel. As a result, he drifted back to eighth.
However, despite the time loss, he actually moved closer to the rider in fourth place, Frank Schleck (Saxo Bank), beating him in the time trial.
As a result, Roche is now just 19 seconds away from that position and can use that for motivation on Saturday.
The stage was won by Peter Velits (HTC Columbia), who stunned the Vuelta field when he scorched to his biggest pro career victory.
The 2007 world under-23 champion beat former Vuelta winner Denis Menchov (Rabobank) by 12 seconds. He also inflicted a very rare defeat on world time-trial champ Fabian Cancellara; the Saxo Bank rider was third, 37 seconds back.
Overnight race-leader Joaquin Rodriguez suffered an even more dramatic slump in form and fell to fifth overall. He was only 105th on the stage, conceding six minutes and 12 seconds to Velits, and seems now to have no chance of winning the race.
The Italian rider Vincenzo Nibali (Liquigas-Doimo) has moved from second to first in the general classification. He will begin today’s flat 153 kilometre stage from Valladolid to Salamanca with a 39-second lead over Ezequiel Mosquera (Xacobeo Galicia).
Today’s stage is likely to be another severe test, as the wind has a tendency to cause difficulties on what is essentially a transition stage between the time trial in Peña Fiel and the final mountain in Madrid.
While a bunch sprint is almost certain today, and is very likely tomorrow, the narrow time gaps mean Saturday’s stage to Bola del Mundo is going to be a ferocious battle.
Elsewhere, for the second day running, Daniel Martin was in the hunt for a stage win in the Tour of Britain. The Garmin Transitions rider was aggressive from the start of the stage and went away in the first four kilometres of racing, joining up with Iker Camano (Endura Racing), Marco Frapporti (Colnago-CSF Inox), Michael Golas (Vacansoleil), Pieter Ghyllebert (An Post Grant Thornton M Donnelly Seán Kelly), Heinrich Haussler (Cervélo Test Team), Bradley Wiggins (Team Sky) and Lucas Haedo (Saxo Bank).
Working well together, these opened a stage-winning lead over the main bunch, which was more wrapped up in the ultimately-unsuccessful attempts of race leader Michael Albasini’s rivals to take his yellow jersey.
Wiggins attacked on a hill 10 kilometres from the finish in Glastonbury, then Martin countered and raced away solo. He was joined by Frapporti, who then surged clear and went on to take the win. Martin was caught by several others before the line and finished seventh.
“I got in the move and gave it a shot, but my legs weren’t great today.
“If they were like yesterday, I would have won,” he said.
Martin spent the whole of Tuesday’s stage on the attack, and the tiredness from that effort was almost certainly what prevented him from taking the win.
Philip Lavery (An Post Grant Thornton M Donnelly Seán Kelly) remains best of the Irish overall in 25th place. He crashed when his forks broke yesterday, but rejoined the peloton and finished in this main bunch. Martin is up to 29th overall.
The race continues today with a 190 kilometre leg to Great Yarmouth. It is much flatter and will most likely finish in a bunch sprint.
