Launching a devastating burst inside the final kilometre of the climb of the Alto de Ibardin, Katusha’s explosive rider Joaquin Rodriguez soloed to victory on stage four of the Vuelta al Pais Vasco.
The Spaniard took over the race lead from yesterday’s winner Samuel Sanchez (Euskaltel Euskadi), who tried to mark his rival but didn’t have the oomph to do so. He crossed the line nine seconds back, conceding his race leader’s yellow jersey, with Sky Procycling’s Sergio Luis Henao a further three seconds back in third and Robert Kiserlovski (Astana) fourth.
"I´m very happy with this victory, it came just in the right day,” said Rodrigeuz, pointing out that it came on the 50th birthday of team president Igor Makarov. “This win is obviously for him and for his effort to bring Katusha Team at the top of world cycling.
“It was a really hard final section, but very suitable to my characteristics: first I was able to slipstream Schleck, then Poels, then I managed to pass him and win. Anyways, I couldn´t win this stage if my teammates didn´t work like they did: they did an incredible job both yesterday and today, so I have to thank each one.”
American rider Chris Horner (RadioShack Nissan), who had started the day second overall, wasn’t able to keep pace inside that final kilometre and finished fourteenth, conceding 21 seconds. So too Tony Martin (Omega Pharma Quick Step), who rode well on the final climb, appeared to be in control, but didn’t have the acceleration when the lighter climbers darted for the summit.
Both of those riders are regarded as good time trialists and had been hoping to stay close enough to swoop on the race’s final stage, a 18.9 kilometre solo TT. It remains to be seen if they are still within reach, or if one of the riders ahead of them can pull off the final victory.
What’s clear though is that Rodriguez isn’t home and dry. He’s often limited against the clock and while today’s win was impressive, he’d undoubtedly prefer a bigger buffer going into the final two stages. However he believes the nature of the final time trial is better than a flat test.
“I´m happy I have the leader´s jersey for the second year in a row: now we have to do all we could to keep it,” he said. “It won´t be easy because of Saturday´s ITT: races against the clock are not my speciality, but this one will be quite technical, with many ups and downs. It won´t be a classic time trial, moreover now I have a nice gap: so I think I have some chances, at least, to be on the podium in the final general classification".
He’s nine seconds clear of Sanchez, 21 up on Horner and 24 ahead of Kiserlovski and Henao. Martin is 33 seconds back and, over 18.9 kilometres, will certainly move right up the leaderboard in two day’s time.
Blow by blow: second mountain stage to reshuffle GC again:
After yesterday’s tough third stage, more mountains awaited the riders on the 151 kilometre race from Eibar to Alto de Ibardin (Bera de Bidasoa). The first of those was the Alto de Itziar, which came 23.5 kilometres after the start and was the most straightforward of the day’s five ascents.
Ranked third category, it was followed by the second category trio of the Alto de Aritxulegi (km 89.5), the Alto de Agiña (km 98.5) plus the Alto de Ibardin (km 117.5). The riders would then slug it out on the first category ascent up to the finish line, the Alto de Ibardin.
There were three non starters, namely Janez Brajkovic and Egor Silin of the Astana team, plus Rabobank’s Steven Kruijswijk.
A tight control was put on the peloton from the start and despite some aggressive racing, no riders were able to get clear for quite some time. Katusha’s Eduard Vorganov beat Evgeni Petrov (Astana) and José Herrada (Movistar) over the first climb, the Alto de Itziar, then the peloton continued on together onwards.
The break begins:
Petrov was feeling good and got clear after an hour of racing. He had a lead of eighteen seconds over Maciej Paterski (Liquigas Cannondale) and 25 seconds on the peloton at kilometre 50, with those two solo riders joining up together soon after. They were reinforced by three others and at kilometre 60, Petrov, Paterski, Diego Ulissi (Lampre), Marcos García (Caja Rural) and Angel Madrazo (Movistar) were one minute twenty seconds ahead of the peloton.
The gap over the Euskaltel Euskadi-led peloton hovered around this point for quite some time. After 81 kilometres of racing Irishman Dan Martin (Garmin Barracuda) retired from the race, having told VeloNation on day one that his legs were still tired after placing fourth in the Volta a Catalunya.
Heading onto the second category Aritxulegi (km 89.5), the quintet were one minute 55 seconds clear. Very soon after that, Wesley Sulzberger and his GreenEdge team-mate Christian Meier jumped clear of the peloton, and crossed the summit 45 seconds behind Ulissi, who beat Madrazo and Paterski for the mountain points.
Garcia cracked 54 kilometres from the finish, but almost immediately, on the second category climb of Agiña, the two GreenEdge chasers joined up. They brought Garcia back with them and increased the lead group’s size to seven.
Giampaolo Caruso (Katusha) and Francisco Javier Vila (Utensilnord) slipped clear of the peloton on the descent and were joined by Igor Anton (Euskaltel Euskadi) plus his team-mate Gorka Verdugo. The latter two were there simply to mark the move, but opted to drop back soon after to help protect the race leader Sanchez.
However the pacesetting wasn’t enough to prevent Michael Albasini (GreenEdge) and Nicki Sorensen (Saxo Bank) from going clear over the top of the Alto de Ibardin and the duo chased hard to close a gap of approximately 50 seconds.
Reinforcements arrive, final battle rages:
They succeeded in doing so 23 kilometres from the end, at which point the Euskaltel-Euskadi led peloton was just thirty seconds back. There was a lot of hard racing and the tension was high.
With eighteen kilometres remaining, the gap went up to 40 seconds. Joaquim Rodriguez’ Katusha team realized that the Euskaltel Euskadi riders were worn out and they started to ride to protect their own leader’s third place overall. The fresher legs meant that the gap began to drop once more.
The lead group ramped up the pace in response and soon split under the pressure. Sorenson, Petrov, Paterski, Albasini and Clarke pushed on ahead. They were 27 seconds clear with twelve kilometres to go, but the distance between the two dropped to just ten seconds over the next seven kilometres. The lead group then diminished to Albasini, Sorensen and Petrov.
As the recent winner of the Volta a Catalunya, Albasini was both determined and confident and he dropped the other two riders 3.5 kilometres from the line. His big push for success wasn’t enough, though, and he was caught very soon afterwards by the Omega Pharma Quick Step-led bunch.
The team was riding for world time trial champion Tony Martin, who started the day just twelve seconds back and was likely to make that up in Saturday’s concluding time trial. Because of that, the team drove onwards to keep everything together.
However RadioShack Nissan had other ideas and Maxime Monfort sparked things off with an attack inside the final two kilometres. Although he was reeled in, the resulting accelerations saw the Omega Pharma Quick Step team disappear from the front and the climbers move forward.
Martin did move to the front himself going under the kite, but came under pressure when Wout Poels (Vacansoleil) surged hard.
He was tracked by Joaquin Rodriguez (Katusha), then Sergio Luis Henao (Sky Procycling) made his move. Rodriguez was stronger, though, and tore past, with the race leader Sanchez in pursuit but losing time with each pedal stroke.
Rodriguez pushed hard all the way to the line, conscious that he needed to gain as much time as possible. Sanchez came through for second, nine seconds back, with Henao third, Robert Kiserlovski (Astana) fourth and Damiano Cunego (Lampre-ISD) fifth.
When the smoke cleared, Rodriguez was nine seconds clear of Sanchez and 21 up on third-placed Horner. Tomorrow’s penultimate stage to Oñati is lumpy but doesn’t give him further opportunity to build time over his rivals, making it very likely that Saturday’s concluding time trial will bring about the next GC changes in the race.
Horner and Martin have both won races in similar situations in the past, and will be focused on putting out their best performances to battle for the final yellow jersey.