Vuelta 2012, Stage 17: Santander > Fuente Dé (187 km)

[jyhjyh]

Tinkoff Bank and the team are happy too
From Twitter:

Oleg Tinkov ‏@olegtinkov
Congarts to @albertocontador and @saxobanktinkoff, this way is better. I am started to be worry about. FIRST SAXO KOFF WIN!

SaxoBank-TinkoffBank ‏@saxobanktinkoff
GREAT TEAM PERFORMANCE LEAD TO STAGE WIN AND LEADER'S JERSEY #Lavuelta

 

[Alpe d'Huez]

Wow! What an incredible win by a great champion. The best GC stage racer in many years. Brilliant tactical and gritty strategy. Just incredible!

As the old saying goes, fortune favors the bold.

 

[Publicus]

Zdenek Stybar ‏@zdenekstybar

Wouw, that was the hardest race ever i think. After 20km flat tire, after 1hr 395w avg!! #vuelta2012 #17thstage


gregory_rast
Looks like all the riders recovered super well at the restday! That's my only explanation why we race like this today! #300wattavg






Es un día triste. Contador ha ganado con dos cojones” purito

gotta admire purito!

What does Purito say? Google translate says "It's a sad day. Contador has won with two balls"

 

[burning]

Are there any ways to watch final 60km?

 

[SafeBet]

Are there any ways to watch final 60km?

60km I don't think so. I'm not even sure there's anything recorded before 30 km out.

 

[Mellow Velo]

The stage reminded a lot of Aprica 2010, except Contador took his shade of red off a 5km hillock, instead of the Mortirolo!

Mystified by Katusha's apparent lack of racing nowse.
Allowing Valverde to place his two strongest domestiques up the road.
Then, Daniel Moreno finishes comfortably with the rest of the GC top tenners,
while his team captain is left short of help and ultimately isolated, just up the road.

 

[pastronef]

just now, listening to Purito, I understand what many people here were saying about the tour 2012 and Sky team.

proud guy, kudos to him, great fighter, and happy man, even if today he's lost the vuelta
he even says he'll tell Piva tonight at dinner to open a few bottle of wines to take away the sadness.
he says his soigneur had a sad face (carriga? garriga?)

http://www.rtve.es/alacarta/videos/...-esperaba-ataque-contador-ganado-dos/1521250/

 

[meat puppet]

The stage reminded a lot of Aprica 2010, except Contador took his shade of red off a 5km hillock, instead of the Mortirolo!

Mystified by Katusha's apparent lack of racing nowse.
Allowing Valverde to place his two strongest domestiques up the road.
Then, Daniel Moreno finishes comfortably with the rest of the GC top tenners,
while his team captain is left short of help and ultimately isolated, just up the road.

Actually, Tinkoff went full-*** Vino and bought the stage. You heard it here first.

 

[T-Nielsen]

The stage reminded a lot of Aprica 2010, except Contador took his shade of red off a 5km hillock, instead of the Mortirolo!

Mystified by Katusha's apparent lack of racing nowse.
Allowing Valverde to place his two strongest domestiques up the road.
Then, Daniel Moreno finishes comfortably with the rest of the GC top tenners,
while his team captain is left short of help and ultimately isolated, just up the road.

I think I heard Riis on the telly say, that the peleton split out there with Contador/saxo (don't now who els) up front and Rodriguez caught behind. Katusha had to chase for quite a while closing it, and that they did not look good doing it.

 

[alberto.legstrong]

I like reading how all the cognoscenti of this board who speak in all-knowing tones really get it wrong about what's about to happen and how the Vuelta was over and they just keep on pontificating. Fun stuff to watch and read.

Ultimately, none of us knows what tomorrow will bring and no one reallyknow much more than anyone else.

 

[Asturiano]

I would like to say that I think we'd have never seen an epic stage like this if Contador and Purito were not taking part of Vuelta and if they were not able to fight in so many stages with steep climbs. The big efforts are paid. Even more after huge climbs of more than 20 %.

I'm sure all ciclists of peloton are really tired.

 

[Mellow Velo]

Well, I guess we'll never see how it happened.
RTVE's video is up and working, but they only had the
final 28.5kms.
http://www.rtve.es/alacarta/videos/...uelta-ciclista-esp-20120905-1610-169/1521322/

Bit of an epic fail, that.

 

[The Hitch]

Contador: "Moments before I attacked, I felt like I had a devil on one of my shoulders shouting at me: "go! attack!" and an angel on my other shoulder telling me: "no Alberto, don't do it...""

lol that is brilliant.

 

[cesko_jr]

http://www.rtve.es/alacarta/videos/...uelta-ciclista-esp-20120905-1610-169/1521322/ - Final 28km of the stage / Spanish

 

[Libertine Seguros]

Rodríguez has had the leader's jersey since stage 4. Too many tired domestiques who've been pacing the bunch for two weeks, and Saxo and Movistar too many strong riders for Katyusha to control them all. Guys like Quintana are way out of the GC mix but have the climbing strength to go away from exhausted domestiques. Now we're seeing the benefit of Saxo's seeming folly of repeated domestique attacks on Lagos de Covadonga - they made Purito sacrifice Dani Moreno that day - today Moreno was gone - the last man with Purito was Alberto Losada, who can't carry him the way Moreno can, which is no great criticism.

Just as Nozal broke with a day to go in 2003, it's just really difficult to ride as leader for a whole race. What we're learning really is that Katyusha's Vuelta team isn't as strong as Sky's Tour team, which isn't a great shock to learn.

 

[LaFlorecita]

What does Purito say? Google translate says "It's a sad day. Contador has won with two balls"

Actually that's what he says But "con dos cojones" is an expression in Spanish.

Google is your friend, these people can probably explain it better.

http://forum.wordreference.com/showthread.php?t=262714&langid=13

 

[Cimber]

The only bad thing about this stage is that there were no live pictures from Contadors original attack, and how SBTB set it all up by having multible riders out in the front. Would have loved to see it all

 

[Fight.The.Power]

Wow

Well done Contador!!

 

[The Hitch]

Itv went full *** and said Contador and Valverde beat Rodriguez because they were doping.

 

[etymology]

So the best stage happens to be the one with the easiest MTF and with an attack from afar, and somehow this is supposed to reinforce Unipublic's trademark stage designs of monster hard MTFs after mostly flat stages?

nah. it was not the best *stage*. it was the best *racing* of a stage.

in my opinion, of course.

 

[LaFlorecita]

Itv went full *** and said Contador and Valverde beat Rodriguez because they were doping.

Lol Brits right?

 

[Publicus]

The only bad thing about this stage is that there were no live pictures from Contadors original attack, and how SBTB set it all up by having multible riders out in the front. Would have loved to see it all

Agreed. Really disappointing.

 

[Cimber]

nah. it was not the best *stage*. it was the best *racing* of a stage.

in my opinion, of course.

Ye that really sums up that its not the course that is most important but how it is ridden

 

[on3m@n@rmy]

Contador: "Moments before I attacked, I felt like I had a devil on one of my shoulders shouting at me: "go! attack!" and an angel on my other shoulder telling me: "no Alberto, don't do it...""

Great line. I love it when things are not so calculated. Like spontaneous combustion.

Nice job Bertie! And to keep it interesting we still have a big dogfight.

 

[Cimber]

Great line. I love it when things are not so calculated. Like spontaneous combustion.

Nice job Bertie! And to keep it interesting we still have a big dogfight.

It was a mix of both. Some was planned (all the SBTB riders put out in front), but Berti needed to have to legs ofc and had to time his attack