Vuelta a España:Stage 3 August 30, Marbella - Malaga 157,3km

[blaxland]

Breakaway likely to suceed and my favourites would be Gerrans,Rodriguez and Roche....

 

[Aguirre]

Rigoberto Uran

or. LL Sanchez, this stage has a red cross in Caisse agenda

 

[auscyclefan94]

Gilbert should win this or LLS.

 

[Ferminal]

Ok, I think LLS will grab it.

Too easy for Rodriguez.

 

[icefire]

This bit of description has me intrigued. I hope it's a battle.

Rabobank team director, Adri van Houwelingen likens the final climb to Amstel Gold's centerpiece climb, the Cauberg.

"After a first category climb in the final thirty kilometers, the riders will be confronted with a hill like the Cauberg in the final kilometer and a half.

http://www.velonation.com/News/ID/5...-significant-difficulties-at-2010-Vuelta.aspx

The climb to Castillo de Gibralfaro looks more constant (5.5%) than Cauberg.

Stage 4 has a more irregular climb in its final km with steeper sections. Roadbook says a maximum of 27% for 100 m.

It's pretty obvious that the stage designer has been looking at AGR and Flèche finishes

 

[craig1985]

Oscar Freire, or maybe Allan Davis.

 

[Ryo Hazuki]

davis can never win a race, freire is done. I seriously hope for some racing on that climb but without soler and loser limbo sanchez as the new valverde in that team it will probably be boring

 

[Francois the Postman]

Uran or Gilbert. I hope Uran.

Won't find out til later tonight though, I'll be watching an acoustic replay of the Tour battle between Lance Armstrong, Marco Pantani and Jan Ullrich this afternoon (no bikes involved) at the Fringe here in Edinburgh.

Enjoy today's race!

 

[Scirea]

Grega Bole ftw

 

[The Hitch]

Could do. Otherwise its probably looking at Siutsou, Peter Velits, van Garderen to try and take the leader's jersey. Velits sounds the most likely for a sprint finish but if someone else is within twenty seconds then they could take it.

Anyone see Petes brother Martin with a chance to get the red?

 

[hoolaparara]

I think I prefer the cyclingnews version I have on hard dics which had them doing laps of porte del leon..... This looks like a tour de france stage.

 

[The Hitch]

also, anyone know what the green jersey standings look like? the offcial page refuses to tell me.

 

[The Hitch]

Um, if it was taken like the tdf then how could cav win bearing in mind he was about half an hour behind on that stage? Hushovd led in conty and schleck but no-one had tried to bring back the breakaway.

Because the stage i was reffering to had 2 catergory 1 climbs and 2 Hors Caretgory climbs.

Today just has the cat 1.

 

[Viskovitz]

If you're expecting some good racing and a bit of a battle in the Puerto del León, you're wrong.

Unipublic has absolutly killed this stages. When they announced it, it was fantastic, almost perfect, with two loops in the Pto. del León and the uphill finish in Gibralfaro.

But they changed the route, removing one of the climbs to El León and including some extra flat terrain (and highway!!!!) between the cat. 1 climb and the finish.

They could've done this:

But no, they don't want to frighten anyone so they managed to make this stage a 2minutes-race for youtube.

By the way, here's a better profile of the Puerto del Leon: http://www.altimetrias.net/aspbk/verPuerto.asp?id=320

 

[roundabout]

Can/will Menchov try to get some time back today? Not necessarily win, but get the bonifications.

 

[Armchair Cyclist]

also, anyone know what the green jersey standings look like? the offcial page refuses to tell me.

There seems to be enormous confusion as to whether the TTT rendered points. After Stage 1, Cav had 25 points, after stage 2 he had 20!

The person who prepared the Green jersey yesterday afternoon and the person who was sent to grab a rider to wear it, rather embarrassingly, were working to different criteria.

 

[roundabout]

It's not like Cavendish cares about winning points jerseys.

 

[Frosty]

Because the stage i was reffering to had 2 catergory 1 climbs and 2 Hors Caretgory climbs.

Today just has the cat 1.

It also had a nice long run-in to the finish which meant that any attacks by the top guys would be very unlikely to succeed

Gilbert for the win today and to take red too.

 

[Descender]

Gilbert for the win today and to take red too.

I think the last climb is too long for Gilbert. It would surprise me to see him win today.

 

[insideout leadout]

I think the last climb is too long for Gilbert. It would surprise me to see him win today.

Yes it's too long for him if they race it hard. But none of the favorites will drop the hammer today on Puerto Leon.

 

[roundabout]

Cavendish dropped already

 

[icefire]

Official live ticker is now on:

http://www.lavuelta.com/10/en/online/index.html?e=3

 

[insideout leadout]

Sky is one man down. John-Lee Augustyn just dropped out.

 

[Hugo Koblet]

Cav dropped 1 minute after 7km...

 

[Frosty]

Cav dropped 1 minute after 7km...

Wow, he said he wasnt welll yesterday but even so.

EDIT: Ah, hadnt realised there was a second cat climb at the start. That explains things a bit. 430 metre climb in the first 8.7km = 5% average.