Chris Sutton (Team Sky) won the second stage of the Vuelta a España between La Nucía and Playas de Orihuela at the end of a long, uphill sprint. The Australian patiently sat on the wheel of Vicented Reynes (Omega Pharma-Lotto), who had attacked in the final 200 metres, and came past him before the line to take the British team’s second win of the day after Edvald Boasson Hagen’s Vattenfall Cyclassics victory. Emerging German sprinter Marcel Kittel (Skil-Shimano) was third as the big-name sprinters found the final rise to the finish too much for their usual lead out tactics.
“It’s a dream to win a stage of a Grand Tour,” said Sutton to the TV cameras at the finish. “We don’t’ exactly have the perfect lead out train here, but what we do have is: we have strength. In the team all the boys today were fantastic; everyone just went back and got bidons, made sure I have enough food, enough drink, all day.
“Then Bradley [Wiggins] just looked after me for the last twenty kilometres, with Kurt Arvesen,” he explained. “Then I yelled at Thomas Löfkvist at the roundabout with about two kilometres to go; I said ‘go’, and he just went straight up the outside and took me to the front.
“I knew it was a hard uphill finish,” he continued. “When I started I was left, then I went right; I kept going left and right, then someone from Lotto [Reynes – ed] accelerated and I jumped on the wheel. I though ‘ooh, this is a long way to go,’ but then I looked back and no one was there, so I was just like ‘alright, I’ve got this one.’
“To win today and to just deliver it off to the whole of Team Sky, it’s just a dream come true and I can’t believe it!”
The sprint came after a four-man breakaway, made up of Paul Martens (Rabobank), Adam Hansen (Omega Pharma-Lotto), Steve Houanard (AG2R La Mondiale) and Jesus Rosendo (Andalucia-Caja Granada), was caught in the final 20km.
A flat opening road stage with a real sting in the tail
The 175.5km stage was, on paper, a cruise down the Costa Blanca to another finish by the sea. A short detour inland in the early kilometres would see the first climb of this year’s Vuelta though, in the shape of the 3rd category climb of the Alto de Relleu. A the only climb of the day, the first man over the top would take the mountains jersey since, once the race descended the other side it would barely rise above sea level all the way to the finish.
Rather than the Relleu though, the climb that was likely to mix things up for the peloton would come at around 600 metres to go, as the route left the seafront road. At just 47 metres above sea level the climb might not register with some, but the fact that most of those metres would be climbed in little more than 400 metres would mean that a conventional sprinter’s lead out would be very difficult indeed.
Unlike the Tour de France – and most stage races in Spain – there would be time bonuses on offer at the finish, and the two intermediate sprints. This meant that, even if he finished in the peloton, the slim lead Jakob Fuglsang (Leopard Trek) was likely to come under threat.
An immediate breakaway started by the smallest team in the race
The Martens, Hansen, Houanard, Rosendo group formed in the very first kilometre of the race, after Rosendo was set up for the escape by his Andalucia-Caja Grananda team. Martens was the best placed in the group, just 30 seconds behind Fuglsang after the team time trial, but the Leopard Trek had no objection to the four riders building a substantial lead.
On the climb of the Alto de Relleu, Rosendo tried to get away to take the points, and take the jersey that he wore for a few days back in 2008. The others chased the Spaniard down before the top though, and Martens led them over; earning himself three points and the first polka-dot jersey of the race.
As Leopard Trek led the peloton over the top behind them, the quartet’s lead was up to 5’18”.
After 60km the gap had grown to six minutes, but this was the point that Leopard Trek decided to pull the break back. Within ten kilometres it had been closed to around five minutes, where the Luxembourg team was happy to allow it to remain.
Denied at the only climb of the day, Rosendo was more determined at the first intermediate sprint, in Santa Pola after 91.8km, crossing the line ahead of Hansen and Houanard. The peloton was just 4’35” behind at this point but the gap opened up again as the race passed through the feedzone. After 112km it was up to almost six minutes once more, as HTC-Highroad and Skil-Shimano added their muscle to the chase.
The sprinters’ teams mass behind the break as its days begin to look numbered
As the gap came down closer to five minutes, the Garmin-Cervélo team came forward to work, followed by a number of Liquigas-Cannondale riders.
Approaching the second intermediate sprint in Dolores, with 44.2km to go, the quartet’s lead was little more than three minutes. Rosendo attacked for the sprint points from a long way out and, since none of the others responded, he took the points by a long way but sat up and allowed the other three to catch him up. The Andalucia-Caja Granada rider had now picked up 12 bonus seconds in the stage but, since his team had finished 1’03” behind Fuglsang’s Leopard Trek team, he was no danger to the red jersey unless the break managed to stay away and win by almost a minute.
The peloton crossed the line just 2’46” behind the leaders.
With 40km to go the gap had dropped to 2’06” and was now tumbling rapidly. The HTC-Highroad team suffered a blow at this point though, as Matt Goss abandoned; the Aussie winner of Milano-Sanremo had been dropped in the team time trial the day before and, having been dropped shortly after the feedzone, he was forced to give up.
At the 35km to go point the gap was down to 1’28” as Team Sky joined the chase, and with 33km to go it dropped below a minute.
Four become one as Hansen goes alone
This seemed to be Hansen’s cue and the Australian attacked his companions on a slight drag. Rosendo led the chase but the Australian was gone and, since neither Martens or Houanard felt like helping, the three riders sat up and Hansen was now alone up the road.
Houanard quickly drifted back to the peloton but Rosendo – with Martens on his wheel – persisted in the chase for a while. The two of them were pulled back by the peloton though, led by Michael Albasini (HTC-Highroad), with 25km to go. Hansen was now 55 seconds ahead, with the wind now at his back, but virtually all of the sprinters’ teams were now on the front of the peloton.
Into the final 20km Hansen had just 25 seconds and, with HTC-Highroad on the front with its usual train, riding at 70kph on the straight wide boulevards, his lead melted like an ice cream in the Spanish sunshine and he was caught with 19km to go.
Mark Cavendish was sitting in third wheel though, with John Degenkolb tucked in behind him, indicating that the American team felt that the finish would suit the young German better.
The sprinters’ teams fight for the lead but the leader’s team takes over
Inside 10km to go a number of other teams began to surge forward, including Omega Pharma-Lotto who, having done nothing all day with Hansen in the break, took over the chase with Hansen himself working at the front. Fabian Cancellara pulled a number of Leopard Trek riders forward with 7km to go; Fuglsang was likely to lose the jersey but with Daniele Bennati there it might well stay with the team.
With 5km to go Skil-Shimano took over, with Katusha behind them; on a small rise with 3km to go though, Rabobank were at the front. Cancellara took over for Leopard Trek as the speed dropped, and the Luxembourg team took the race into the final two kilometres, with Davide Vigano and Robert Wagner – the two riders who had crashed on stage one – on the front.
HTC-Highroad had not given up at this point, as Tony Martin tried to move forward but, as Vigano rounded the corner onto the seafront and passed under the flamme rouge, he accelerated and opened up a gap. Skil-Shimano and Movistar were not about to let the Italian get away though and surged after him, and Wagner took over the front once more.
The climb to the finish kicks in as the peloton is in chaos
As the front of the peloton hit the short, steep climb Tom Boonen (Quick Step) launched his sprint. Despite wrestling a massive gear on the gradients the Belgian had hit the front far too early and quickly faded as the peloton surged around him.
“It was an unusual sprint," said Boonen afterwards. "[Nikolas] Maes lead me up into the final, but we opened up the sprint a little too soon. I ended up exposed too soon on the final uphill stretch. At that point I tried to slow down to try to try again afterward, but the riders arriving from behind had an higher speed than me and there was nothing more I could do."
No one team was able to take control as the climb disrupted everybody’s organisation but, as the road levelled out with 200 metres to go Reynes jumped. Sutton was quickly onto the Spaniard’s wheel and the two of them began to distance the rest of the slow-reacting peloton.
Sutton was easily the better sprinter of the two, and it was a mere formality for the Australian to come around Reynes to post his first win since Kuurne-Brussel-Kuurne back at the end of February.
Kittel was the best of a number of sprinters who had managed to reach the line in front, finishing ahead of Tyler Farrar (Garmin-Cervélo) and Matti Breschel (Rabobank), with Bennati in sixth.
Despite the time bonuses on the line, none of the top three was close enough to the lead of Fuglsang to threaten the lead. By virtue of his better finish on the line though, Bennati takes over the red jersey from his teammate. With Cancellara losing 1’52” on the line though, Leopard Trek teammate Maxime Monfort moves up to third.