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2013 Vuelta a la Comunidad de Madrid 04/05 (1.1)

Sep 8, 2010
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Madrid - Puerto de Morcuera, 167 km

For years this was a five days stage race, then it went down to three stages and now we have a one day race with a mountain top finish.

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Rutómetro

Teams

Movistar
Euskaltel
Caja Rural
Burgos BH-Castilla y León
Euskadi
472-Colombia
Lokosphinx
Louletano-Dunas Dourades
OFM Quintas da Lixa
LA Aluminios Antarte
Radio Popular – Onda
 
All the Portuguese teams except the one that's strongest on paper (but is racing in Azerbaijan at the moment, or at least half of them are. Brandão, Brôco, Ribeiro, Vilela and Sérgio Sousa are in Azerbaijan, but that still leaves Rui Sousa, Arkaitz Durán and Cesar Fonte in Europe... oh, and Carmim aren't there either, but I worry for them. Two years ago they utterly dominated the Volta with Mestre, Andre Cardoso and Nelson Vitorino, and for a couple of years before that with Blanco and the joke that was Cândido Barbosa the only thing that could stop them was an epically doped and completely stacked Liberty Seguros team, yet today Livramento who was 4th or 5th in the food chain not 2 years ago is their most recognisable star, and they have been fairly slow off the mark in picking up new young talents too.

OFM are probably the strongest of the Portuguese squads for this on paper, what with Gustavo César being a former winner of Catalunya and of a Vuelta mountain-stage back in his Xacobeo days, and Sérgio Ribeiro being able to compete on small to medium climbs.
 
Libertine Seguros said:
All the Portuguese teams except the one that's strongest on paper (but is racing in Azerbaijan at the moment, or at least half of them are. Brandão, Brôco, Ribeiro, Vilela and Sérgio Sousa are in Azerbaijan, but that still leaves Rui Sousa, Arkaitz Durán and Cesar Fonte in Europe... oh, and Carmim aren't there either, but I worry for them. Two years ago they utterly dominated the Volta with Mestre, Andre Cardoso and Nelson Vitorino, and for a couple of years before that with Blanco and the joke that was Cândido Barbosa the only thing that could stop them was an epically doped and completely stacked Liberty Seguros team, yet today Livramento who was 4th or 5th in the food chain not 2 years ago is their most recognisable star, and they have been fairly slow off the mark in picking up new young talents too.

OFM are probably the strongest of the Portuguese squads for this on paper, what with Gustavo César being a former winner of Catalunya and of a Vuelta mountain-stage back in his Xacobeo days, and Sérgio Ribeiro being able to compete on small to medium climbs.
The way the portuguese racing scene is right now Sergio Ribeiro will contend in every MTF, including Serra da Estrela. And I completely agree with you, Carmin is really through some trouble, I guess it's a miracle the team is still on the road. But I would wait until the Volta to judge: Livramento is a true pure climber, Pozzovivo style; if the Volta has light TT's he can contend considering the drop in the racing level. They also have Henrique Casimiro who is a decent climber. It's a very young team maybe they can pop up a surprise or two.
 
Waterloo Sunrise said:
What a shame this has now become a minor parochial affair. What a ****ty list of teams.

Made doubly bad by the loss of so many Spanish teams in recent years. Parochial races could still seem comparatively strong a few years ago, with Caisse/Euskaltel/Saunier Duval as WT teams, and Andalucía, Xacobeo, Relax and Contentpolis as ProConti teams. With those, you only needed a couple of decent extranjero teams and you've got an OK lineup for a .1 race. Now, there's so few Spanish domestic teams that they can't hold that part of the bargain up anymore, which has only gone to show how parochial the race had become.

I guess you could compare the 2011-12 Voltas. The Volta a Portugal's startlists had been dwindling for some time from their most recent heyday (2007-8 had very good fields), but it was before that kind of hidden by a couple of outsider teams with strong contenders (2010 saw CarmioOro with Pardilla and Sella and Farnese Vini with Sinkewitz have a strong effect on the race, 2009 saw Lampre with Cunego and Tiralongo getting involved), but when the Puerto guys finally moved on and the outsider teams didn't show, you were left with a paper-thin, depressingly weak field for such a storied race.
 
Libertine Seguros said:
Made doubly bad by the loss of so many Spanish teams in recent years. Parochial races could still seem comparatively strong a few years ago, with Caisse/Euskaltel/Saunier Duval as WT teams, and Andalucía, Xacobeo, Relax and Contentpolis as ProConti teams. With those, you only needed a couple of decent extranjero teams and you've got an OK lineup for a .1 race. Now, there's so few Spanish domestic teams that they can't hold that part of the bargain up anymore, which has only gone to show how parochial the race had become.

Are there any sportif scene in Spain? Perhaps thats the way to keep some of these going short to mid term (as in simultaneously).
 
greenedge said:
I think someone from Movistar will win, they have so many cards to play. The only person who i think can challenge is Landa (but that may be because i do not know most others).

I'll cheer for Fraile too.

Heiner Parra and Juan Ernesto Chamorro from 4-72 Colombia.

Parra is on really, really good form at the moment.

Chamorro was really strong in Europe last year. He is a good friend and training-partner of Darwin Atapuma.

Lokosphinx have several cards to play out.

Burgos BH will be active. Luis Guillermo Mas Bonet will attack from the gun as always. Even though this race is not suited for him what-so ever.However, I hope Steve Bekaert will be there in the end.
 
1º Javier Moreno (Movistar Team)
2º Mikel Landa (Euskaltel Euskadi) m.t.
3º Delio Fernández (OFM-Quinta Da lixa) a 4"
4º Rubén Plaza (Movistar Team) a 20"
5º Amets Txurruka (Caja Rural-Seguros RGA) a 27"
6º Marcos García (Caja Rural-Seguros RGA) a 29"
7º Mikel Bizkarra (Fundación Euskadi) a 31"
8º Daniel Petrov (Caja Rural-Seguros RGA) a 41"
9º Sylvester Szmyd (Movistar Team) a 49"
10º Alexey Rybalkin (Lokosphinx) a 1:06

Movistar also posted a picture of the finish, but it's quite large so I've not direct-linked it.

Good result for Délio Fernández there, and nice to see Txurruka picking up more points. Sadly this is pretty much it for the Spanish calendar until San Sebastián and its associated events (Ordizia, Getxo), then Burgos and the Vuelta.
 
No, you're right, that's on. It used to clash with Romandie and so as nothing had been announced I assumed it died, but on April 25th they confirmed some teams and this follows from the previous announcements, so we can see Asturias as follows:

- 2 stages, May 11-12
- Stage 1: Oviedo - Pola de Lena. This will be a tough mountain stage, including the East side of Alto de la Cobertoria which is BRUTAL, however it's about halfway through the stage so while it will shell riders it won't settle the race. We then have some long valley roads before Tenebredo, and then the riders will head to La Vega, and then climb via El Cordal to Cuchu Puercu, which is unfortunately the easy side of this awesome an tragically underused climb. Most maps of Cuchu Puercu you see are from Pola de Lena, climbing the tougher side of Cordal then ascending to Cuchu Puercu; this is tough enough, but the really brutal side is the same for most of its length as Cobertoria East, then you turn right away from Cobertoria and continue to ascend steep slopes on narrow roads. This of course means, the riders in Asturias have to descend this, which means a treacherous, terribly steep descent into the finish, which could be very dramatic.
- Stage 2 is from Breño to the Alto del Naranco, by the now traditional route including the Circuito Chechu Rubiera and El Violeo before the summit finish.
- Teams will be Movistar, Euskaltel, Caja Rural and Novo Nordisk from the top 2 divisions, with the rest of the lineup made up of Euskadi, Burgos-BH, Start Trigón de Paraguay, Louletano-Dunas Douradas, OFM-Quinta da Lixa, Radio Popular-Onda, Lokosphinx, 472 Colombia es Pasión, and national teams from Spain and Argentina.

Again, a bit of a letdown that the Portuguese teams are coming but no Efapel, who are the strongest of them on paper.
 
Jul 25, 2011
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Dazed and Confused said:
Are there any sportif scene in Spain? Perhaps thats the way to keep some of these going short to mid term (as in simultaneously).

Unfortunately there's just Real Madrid and Barcelona for spanish press
 

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