Vuelta 2018 stage 13: Candás - La Camperona 174.8km

Page 9 - Get up to date with the latest news, scores & standings from the Cycling News Community.
movingtarget said:
Gigs_98 said:
If someone had told me before the vuelta the first three mtf's would go to Benjamin King and Oscar Rodriguez...

Vuelta is the breakaway grand tour.
It's not just that all three stages went to the break. King isn't that great of a climber and I haven't heard the name Oscar Rodriguez in my whole life before today. Nobody could have predicted this.
 
Re:

yaco said:
That win by Rodrigiez has to be one of the biggest surprise stage victories in a GT for years.
Rodriguez had a career total of 17 CQ points before today. Unless he does something else unexpected, he will be eligible to be picked in the 2019-2021 emerging riders game.
 
Re: Re:

spalco said:
Cance > TheRest said:
Something wrong with Oscar Rodriguez' time, or did he really only lose 27 seconds to Nairo on the last 3k???
http://www.climbing-records.com/2018/09/nairo-at-his-best-on-camperona.html

Why not? He looked fast, and beating Majka the time can't have been complete ****.
I'm just surprised that a relative nobody from a break only lost 27 seconds against Quintana, who even managed to better his own record. It really puts Rodriguez performance in a new perspective, knowing that his time is so good, that he would have, hypothetically, finished with the Kelderman-Kruijswijk group, had he been riding against the GC guys
 
Gigs_98 said:
movingtarget said:
Gigs_98 said:
If someone had told me before the vuelta the first three mtf's would go to Benjamin King and Oscar Rodriguez...

Vuelta is the breakaway grand tour.
It's not just that all three stages went to the break. King isn't that great of a climber and I haven't heard the name Oscar Rodriguez in my whole life before today. Nobody could have predicted this.

No, still it's been good for the smaller teams I suppose. A relatively weak Sky team plus GC teams that can't be bothered chasing doesn't help. Michelton and Movistar are desperate for a Vuelta win after what happened in the other grand tours and are trying to do it without dominating like Sky does.
 
Two interesting comments from Oscar Rodriguez in the post stage interview:
He has raced the climb looking at his power meter, at 400W
He didn't know the climb. Actually, he crashed out in the stage of the Vuelta a Castilla y Leon last year that finished on this climb.
 
Quintana has 43 seconds on Urán now. I also had the impression that he didn't go full gas until the final 200 m, because he was bothered about Yates being on his wheel. But it's true that he broke the record of the final 2.9 K with 11:55.

The big question remains, why did Movistar work so hard? It wasn't enough for the stage win and it wasn't necessary for the GC.