On today’s stage to Alto de Cotobello, a late attack from Joaquim Rodriguez (Katusha) saw him seize back the red jersey that he lost to Igor Antón (Euskaltel-Euskadi) on stage 11 to Andorra. Vincenzo Nibali (Liquigas-Doimo) had taken it on stage 14 to Peña Cabarga, after Antón crashed out, but by a slim 4 second Margin.
“Purito” now leads the Italian by 33 seconds with 5 stages to go; both riders know which of those five will be the ones to count. After tomorrow’s rest day there will be a 46km time trial on Wednesday; this will be followed by two flat, transitional stages, followed by Saturday’s big rendezvous up to the 2247m Bola del Mundo on Saturday.
“My lead over Nibali on GC isn’t big enough ahead of the time trial at Peñafiel,” admitted Rodriguez. “I have to lose as little time as possible to hold on to a chance and have a few options for the stage to Bola del Mundo on Saturday.
“Nibali is great time triallist,” he continued. “He’s better than me; every second will count before the last mountain stage; I’ll have to ride the best time trial of my life. Tomorrow we’ll go and see the course during the rest day. If I can limit my loss to one and half or two minutes, it could work. The hills of Bola del Mundo are very steep.
“The fight for the red jersey isn’t a duel now,” added Rodriguez. “Ezequiel Mosquera [of Xacobeo-Galicia, who now sits in third place 53 seconds back] isn’t a bad time triallist. During the first week, I said that I could imagine the overall win only if my condition remained the same; I still think that way.
“Today at the beginning of the ascent to Cotobello, I’ve realized that the attacks from [Carlos] Sastre, [Tom] Danielson and [Nicolas] Roche wouldn’t go far because [Roman] Kreuziger was doing a wonderful job for Nibali,” he explained. “When Mosquera attacked, Kreuziger followed again but I saw that Nibali couldn’t react and I went flat out. The strongest rider in today’s stage was definitely Kreuziger.”
Nibali lost his jersey to Rodriguez today but is also under pressure from Mosquera, who is now just 20 seconds behind him in the overall classification. Like Rodriguez, he knows that Wednesday’s time trial and Saturday’s final mountain stage to the Bola del Mundo are where the race will be decided.
“I’ve had the feeling of just like in the second to last stage of the Giro [d’Italia] en route to the Passo Tonale when our adversaries have started fighting from kilometre zero onwards,” said the Italian of today’s stage. “I knew it was going be a demanding day and I had visualised the idea of losing the red jersey. The very end of the climb was perfectly suitable for attacks from climbers like Rodriguez and Mosquera.”
For Nibali the third week of the Vuelta is becoming tough after finishing third in the Giro while riding in support of team captain Ivan Basso.
“I’ve paid a bit the efforts I’ve accumulated in the past few days,” he admitted. “I’ve tried to handle the situation as well as I could and it’s OK like this. On Tuesday there is a rest day that will be precious and on Wednesday, there’s a time trial that could play to my advantage, then a big stage on Saturday, so the Vuelta remains wide open.”
This year’s Tour de France was decided by a mere 39 seconds, the Vuelta could possibly be even closer.