Mark Cavendish (HTC-Columbia) won the eighteenth stage of the Vuelta a España between Valadolid and Salamanca in a bunch sprint. The Manx Missile took his third stage of the race so far by a tight margin ahead of Juan Jose Haedo (Saxo Bank). Manuel Cardoso (Footon-Servetto) was third.
After some tough days in the mountains followed by yesterday’s time trial, stage 18 was a short, flat 148.9km dash through the Spanish plain to the north west of Madrid. After suffering at the hands of the overall classification riders, the sprinters had their chance once more.
"I always say this: it's me that crosses the line, but there are eight guys behind me who support me from the very beginning," said Cavendish afterwards. "We held the break at two minutes, then Kanstantsin Sivtsov came up as well and the gap started to come down.
“I was panicking a bit with two kilometres to go, but Peter Velits, even though he's fighting for the GC, brought me all the way up to the front again,” he continued. “Then Matt Goss did more than he should have leading me out. It was a difficult finish, very technical, but I went away with 180 metres to go. If I had the strength to get this win, it was all thanks to the work the team did."
After just 2km a group of eight riders managed to get clear of the peloton. They were: Juan Javier Estrada and Jose Vicente Toribio (both Andalucia-Cajasur), Alexandre Pichot (Bbox Bouygues Telecom), Pablo Urtasun (Euskaltel-Euskadi), Jose Alberto Benitez (Footon-Servetto), Daniele Pietropolli (Lampre-Farnese Vini), Olivier Kaisen (OmegaPharma-Lotto) and Dominik Roels (Milram).
The group was deemed to be of no danger to anyone and were allowed to get 2’14” ahead by the 20km mark.
On such a short stage, the sprinters’ teams did not want to let a group get too far away and so HTC-Columbia and Garmin-Transitions kept the peloton within not much more than 2 minutes of the octet.
After 100km the Caisse d’Epargne team came to the front of the peloton and the gap reduced to 1’30”; not wanting to catch the group too soon and invite counterattacks, the peloton slowed once more and it increased to 2 minutes once more.
A few kilometres later though, HTC-Columbia decided that enough was enough and began to work to bring back the eight leaders; at the 120km point the lead stood at just over a minute. Garmin-Transitions came forward to help once more, along with several riders from Quick Step and with 20km to go it was down to just 40 seconds.
With 15km still to race the gap was reduced to just 10 seconds, causing Kaisen to try to escape alone. The Belgian was joined by Benitez and Toribio as the other five riders surrendered to their fate; 2km later though, the trio was captured.
With 9km to go former race leader Philippe Gilbert (OmegaPharma-Lotto) launched a solo attack. The Belgian was unable to get more than a few seconds ahead of the peloton though, and he was recaptured with just 5km to go.
Inside the last 3km the Quick Step and Milram teams fought for supremacy at the front of the peloton, with the Belgian team coming out on top.
Although Cavendish was a long way back with just a few kilometres to go, Goss brought him near to the front as the peloton entered the final kilometre. As the sprinters all launched their bursts for the line Goss took Cavendish inside the last 200 metres and the Manxman accelerated past to take another win.
Although Cavendish appeared comfortable, Haedo came close as they crossed the line.
With no action between the contenders in the overall classification Vincenzo Nibali (Liquigas-Doimo) holds onto the red jersey, ahead of Ezequiel Mosquera (Xacobao-Galicia) and Peter Velits (HTC-Columbia). There were a few splits in the peloton at the finish though, with some of the less attentive members of the top ten losing a few seconds.
Result stage 18
1. Mark Cavendish (GBr) HTC-Columbia
2. Juan Jose Haedo (Arg) Team Saxo Bank
3. Manuel Cardoso (Por) Footon-Servetto
4. Tyler Farrar (USA) Garmin-Transitions
5. Samuel Dumoulin (Fra) Cofidis
6. Robert Förster (Ger) Team Milram
7. Enrique Mata (Spa) Footon-Servetto
8. Greg Van Avermaet (Bel) OmegaPharma-Lotto
9. Wouter Weylandt (Bel) Quick Step
10. Danilo Hondo (Ger) Lampre-Farnese Vini
Standings after stage 18
1. Vincenzo Nibali (Ita) Liquigas-Doimo
2. Ezequiel Mosquera (Spa) Xacobeo-Galicia @ 38s
3. Peter Velits (Svk) HTC-Columbia @ 1’59”
4. Fränk Schleck (Lux) Team Saxo Bank @ 3’43”
5. Joaquim Rodriguez (Spa) Team Katusha @ 3’48”
6. Xavier Tondo (Spa) Cervélo TestTeam @ 3’48”
7. Tom Danielson (USA) Garmin-Transitions @ 3’58”
8. Nicolas Roche (Irl) AG2R-La Mondiale @ 4’02”
9. Carlos Sastre (Spa) Cervélo TestTeam @ 4’16”
10. Luis Leon Sanchez (Spa) Caisse d’Epargne @ 5’42”