Anton reclaims Vuelta lead with stage victory.
Yesterday was a rough day for Igor Anton, as he lost the race lead even though he finished at the same time as the main contenders. Today, he made absolutely sure he had all of them beat. Anton won stage 11 with a powerful counter-attack on the final summit to the finish to pass and beat all of the other GC contenders to the finish line. The attacking started when Ezequiel Mosquera made his move, and Vincenzo Nibali and Joaquin Rodriguez took off behind him. Anton, recognizing he missed the move, knew he would need to do something special to catch up, and he was nothing short of special Wednesday afternoon. Anton easily rode away from the group he was in before shortly powering his way past Nibali, Rodriguez, and the rest that went with them. He was not finished yet, as he somehow managed to get right up next to and then easily rode past Mosquera for the stage win and the GC lead. Rodriguez had an extra bad day, as he could not keep with Nibali's pace either and dropped down to 4th in the GC, losing almost a minute. Xavier Tondo, on the other hand, looked very good and powered his way past Nibali and the others to grab 3rd place and move up to 3rd in the GC, about a minute behind. Many of the other GC favorites lost about half of a minute, which is significant but not fatal at this stage of the game. Denis Menchov and Philippe Gilbert completely fell out of contention today, missing the final elite group and dropping far behind all of the other leaders.
I would guess sprint tomorrow, because it seems that the sprinters will have enough time to recover from the early climbs. If it isn't, the only other possibility is a large breakaway full of mostly specialist riders.
Yesterday was a rough day for Igor Anton, as he lost the race lead even though he finished at the same time as the main contenders. Today, he made absolutely sure he had all of them beat. Anton won stage 11 with a powerful counter-attack on the final summit to the finish to pass and beat all of the other GC contenders to the finish line. The attacking started when Ezequiel Mosquera made his move, and Vincenzo Nibali and Joaquin Rodriguez took off behind him. Anton, recognizing he missed the move, knew he would need to do something special to catch up, and he was nothing short of special Wednesday afternoon. Anton easily rode away from the group he was in before shortly powering his way past Nibali, Rodriguez, and the rest that went with them. He was not finished yet, as he somehow managed to get right up next to and then easily rode past Mosquera for the stage win and the GC lead. Rodriguez had an extra bad day, as he could not keep with Nibali's pace either and dropped down to 4th in the GC, losing almost a minute. Xavier Tondo, on the other hand, looked very good and powered his way past Nibali and the others to grab 3rd place and move up to 3rd in the GC, about a minute behind. Many of the other GC favorites lost about half of a minute, which is significant but not fatal at this stage of the game. Denis Menchov and Philippe Gilbert completely fell out of contention today, missing the final elite group and dropping far behind all of the other leaders.
I would guess sprint tomorrow, because it seems that the sprinters will have enough time to recover from the early climbs. If it isn't, the only other possibility is a large breakaway full of mostly specialist riders.
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