(Mid Vuelta) Who will win the 2011 Vuelta a Espana?

[cineteq]

Nibali came from outside top 10 in GC's, to 7th in Tour, to podium

Mollema comes from 12th in Giro to 4th in Vuelta, not weird
Wiggins from 4th in Tour to 3rd in Vuelta, not weird
Cobo has shown he can climb awesomely when in form in 2007/2008, bit weird but not out of nowhere
Monfort has come from just outside top 10 in Vuelta, to top 5, again compared to Nibali's rise for instance not that weird

Leaves Froome, the total anomaly here

Mollema maybe, he's young and I give you that.
Wiggins had just hanged on to win Dauphiné after the ITT, he crashed out of TdF with a broken collarbone, barely time to train back.
Cobo rode for Saunier-Duval, 0 points in 2010, out of nowhere is leading
Monfort is not known for climbing steep mountains
Froome you said it better

 

[Angliru]

Take a look of the 1st five....

1 COBO, Juan José GEO 59h 57' 16''
2 FROOME, Christopher SKY + 20''
3 WIGGINS, Bradley SKY + 46''
4 MOLLEMA, Bauke RAB + 1' 36''
5 MONFORT, Maxime LEO + 2' 37''

Having slept over, and now waken up to a weird reality...something has gone terribly wrong with this year's Vuelta

A Spaniard leading the Vuelta, snatching the leader's jersey with panache on the Angliru & winning the stage? What could be more right?

 

[luckyboy]

Looking at the top 5 you'd think it was a weak field, but all the major favourites (Anton, Nibali, Rodriguez, Menchov, Scarponi, VDB2) have either collapsed, lost time at the start, or not had the form.

 

[Swede1]

As Libertine said in a different thread, Cobo finished top 10 in 2009 Vuelta, and was outclimbed by riders like Valverde, Sanchez, Evans, Basso, and Gesink. Considering that this year the top contenders have either not had the form, or had bad luck, he's riding quite normally.

 

[cineteq]

This is my final podium:

1 COBO, Juan José GEO
2 FROOME, Christopher SKY
3 MONFORT, Maxime LEO

Should we call this year's Vuelta Battle of The Domestiques?

 

[mewmewmew13]

I would pick cobo to hang on or froome......this will be an interesting final week!
.... who knew??

 

[Gingerale]

i had no idea who froome or cobo were and hadn't paid much attention to monfort or poels.

all were impressive on angliru

oh, and mollema impressive too. can he get on the podium?

cobo
froome
mollema