Tour de France Green Jersey winner gaining form day by day, could be a factor again soon.
While the hard work of HTC-Columbia once again proved fruitless in Stage 5, so did the riding of arguably the other hardest working team on the day, Lampre-Farnese.
After a significant amount of work during the stage spent on the front reining in the day's break, and then putting together a perfect leadout for Tour de France Green Jersey winner, Alessandro Petacchi, the rider from La Spezia on the Ligurian Coast, finished even more quietly than Cavendish - 5th on the day.
Speaking with Danish cycling news source, feltet.dk, Lampre sports director Maurizio Piovani was anything but frustrated with the embattled sprinter.
"Once again, the team performed a good job for him, but the others are in better shape than Alessandro. He does not have the same legs as he did at the Tour."
The Vuelta is Petacchi's third Grand Tour of 2010. The Giro was a wash for the 36 year old, but two stage wins and the Green Jersey in July more than made up for it. The Vuelta is now serving as a jumping off point for Petacchi to improve his form ahead of the World Championships, which have to be seen as an uncertainty considering the doping investigation hanging over the Lampre sprinter's head.
It has been quite a few years since Petacchi has done anything nearing such a big undertaking as three Grand Tours in one season, and with the recent investigation into possible doping, one has to wonder how much Ale-Jet has left to give in the final sixteen stages of this year's Vuelta.
Piovani is not worried about his star rider: "He needs a few more stages to get back to his highest level. He has the capacity to win a stage here, but it is not a task that is easy for him, just as it is not easy for Cavendish. They both lack their usual trains, and now many riders think that if Hutarovich can beat the world's best sprinter, they too have a chance to win a stage at the Vuelta."
Petacchi has not shown his normal sprinting prowess with only 4th and 5th place finishes in the two sprints so far, but he has shown well on the climbs so far - a very good sign for the rider that still dreams of World Championship glory. The winner of 19 stages at the Vuelta could possibly get another chance tomorrow, but the steep slopes of Murcia's Cresta del Gallo will likely spell the demise of not only Petacchi, but most of the other sprinters as well. The next appointment for the sprinters will almost undoubtedly be on Friday in Orihuela. If Piovani is right in his prediction of an ever improving Petacchi, that could be the day we see something more from the Italian.