Today’s flatter stage to Lorca should give the weakened Team Sky riders a little respite as they continue to try to get over the illness which has destroyed the squad’s chances in the overall classification of the race. A bunch sprint is predicted at the end of the 198.8 kilometre leg, and the likelihood that the bunch will stay more or less together should help those who are suffering.
Yesterday was another very tough stage for the team, with the seven remaining riders in the race struggling to ride at their usual level. With bodies weakened by the stomach problems which first appeared on Sunday night, they soldiered on to the finish in Valdepeñas de Jaén in the hope that they might feel stronger in a few days time.
Best of the septet was Lars Petter Nordhaug, who conceded just three minutes and five seconds to the stage winner Igor Anton (Euskaltel-Euskadi). However it was a much tougher day for Simon Gerrans, Thomas Löfkvist, Kjell Carlström, Peter Kennaugh, Juan-Antonio Flecha and Ian Stannard, who all lost over 14 minutes to Anton.
Gerrans’s Twitter feed has been a chronicle of what he has been through, and his experiences will be echoed by those of the others. His messages in recent days have summed things up for the team. “I just had possibly the worst day on the bike in my life,” he said on Monday. “Like most of Team Sky here on the Vuelta, I went down with a dose of food poisoning.”
He later revised the possible cause of the problem later that day. “I hear some of us who are sick were eating different things for dinner last night, so that rules out food poisoning.”
The Australian sounded more upbeat before the start of yesterday’s stage, implying that things were heading in the right direction. “I’m back, a couple of kilos less of a man than I was, but I’m back all the same,” he wrote. “Expecting another tough day again today.” However, the optimism was a little premature. “I thought I was right this morning, but damn was I wrong,” he wrote after the finish. “I just spent another day spewing in Spain.”
Team principal Dave Brailsford knows that Grand Tours in themselves are very difficult; when a rider is trying to race, and also has to deal with an illness, it ramps up the ordeal all the more. “It's so hard to try and deal with the race and expect your body to recover from the illness - it really is a major battle to survive in the race,” he said. “I can't convey enough just how much the guys are suffering and that them staying in the race is a feat itself."
With food poisoning thought unlikely to be the cause, a contagious virus such as viral gastroenteritis (stomach flu) is a strong possibility, as it would explain the spread through the riders and staff.
It initially affected four riders, causing Ben Swift and John-Lee Augustyn to pull out on Monday, but has since spread. “Thomas (Löfkvist) and Kjell (Carlström) went down with it today,” said Brailsford after yesterday’s fourth stage. “Kjell in particular had a torrid day, riding the last 5km on his own to somehow finish the stage.
"Pretty much everyone has had it now - Lars-Petter finished relatively high up today but even he's not 100% and was complaining about his stomach this morning.”
Team Sky is riding its third Grand Tour of the year. The Giro d’Italia brought some success with Bradley Wiggins’ win in the prologue, and podium places on stages by Greg Henderson and in the team time trial. The Tour de France also saw some decent placings, such as Geraint Thomas’ second place on stage three (plus a spell in the white jersey), plus two third places picked by Edvald Boasson Hagen.
However, Brailsford would have to concede that the team has not had the success it had anticipated in the three-week events. The Vuelta a España was a chance to put things right, and so the illness affecting the team is a big blow.
The riders will fight on, knowing that if they can get through the next couple of stages, their strength should return. Once that happens, they can once again chase aims other than simply getting to the finish line.