Vuelta a Espana Stage 9: Villacastín - Sierra de Bejar. La Covatilla 183,0 km

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Oct 23, 2009
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goggalor said:
What happened with the penalty? I missed it.
He got a penalty of 40 seconds because he got paced by a car back up to the peloton after a pee break. Riders do this all the time though so it's just completely ridiculous and unfair. Would never happen if he were spanish.
 
May 19, 2011
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we will just have to wait to see whether he is an idiot or not

Ragerod said:
If Nibali conserved energy today then he's an idiot but I don't think he did as it looked like he was pedalling squares in the last 100 metres.

Conserving energy when all of the big favourites have been dropped is effectively trading guaranteed time today for potential time tomorrow.
 
Jul 24, 2010
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There is no way in hell Nibali was conserving energy. He, along with everyone else on the mountain, was right on the limit. If he wasn't, he wouldn't have lost 7 seconds to Wiggins in the final 150 metres.
 
Aug 5, 2010
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hatcher said:
There is no way in hell Nibali was conserving energy. He, along with everyone else on the mountain, was right on the limit. If he wasn't, he wouldn't have lost 7 seconds to Wiggins in the final 150 metres.

ya he was cooked over the last 100 meters. the strong winds when he was making the pace with martin on his wheel(he did a few turns ofc) clearly tired him while wiggins only really started pushing on the last 3k when froome managed to catch nibali and martin.
 
Aug 19, 2011
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Nibali was lucky that the final 100 metres were downhill, in the slightly overdramatic words of the commentator on that link "Nibali is dead!" as he trundled across the line.

Great to see riders not famed for attacking on uphills (Nibali and Wiggins) have a shot at it. They've probably buried a few rivals with their efforts (Scarponi, Anton, Sastre). Wiggins having Froome so strong is totally unexpected and a game changer. I think Wiggins has done enough to prove me wrong and I think he can now get a top 5 overall.
 
Jul 10, 2011
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greatking88 said:
Can't believe I had to work and I missed Dan Martin's win, been watching every stage waiting for him to confirm his huge potential and take a victory. Thank God for CyclingTorrents :) Also those 40seconds lost to a penalty might prove very costly come the end of the vuelta(such a joke to lose seconds like that)

i'm new in the sport... I just watched the final of today's stage... and I did not see a great victory from Dan Martin..

If I was him.. I would feel bad for "wheelsuckink" wiggles all the way and sprint in the line... some from TGBM...

Maybe this is the culture of the sport and look like a normal and "great" win for the "inside" people... but for me.. this win is not a deserved one...

Wiggles was the real and true champion...
 
Jul 10, 2011
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Jamsque said:
Martin put in the biggest attack of the whole climb.

biggest atack that was catch by wiggles... so why they didn't work together? If martin did not have more power like nibali.. ok for me...
 
Oct 26, 2010
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virandociclista said:
i'm new in the sport... I just watched the final of today's stage... and I did not see a great victory from Dan Martin..

If I was him.. I would feel bad for "wheelsuckink" wiggles all the way and sprint in the line... some from TGBM...

Maybe this is the culture of the sport and look like a normal and "great" win for the "inside" people... but for me.. this win is not a deserved one...

Wiggles was the real and true champion...
Martin attacked earlier on the climb, worked with Nibali and was caught by the efforts of Froome and the head wind.

Wiggins paced that group because he knew that it was a remarkable opportunity to get time from the most direct GC contenders. Obviously the others didn't even tried to help because he was really strong. Martin did what he had to, and it's a truely deserved win for him. What do you suggest he should have done? Wait for Wiggins to cross the line first?
 
Jul 10, 2011
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trevim said:
Martin attacked earlier on the climb, worked with Nibali and was caught by the efforts of Froome and the head wind.

Wiggins paced that group because he knew that it was a remarkable opportunity to get time from the most direct GC contenders. Obviously the others didn't even tried to help because he was really strong. Martin did what he had to, and it's a truely deserved win for him. What do you suggest he should have done? Wait for Wiggins to cross the line first?

I'm just trying to understand the rules of the sport...
 
Apr 16, 2009
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virandociclista said:
i'm new in the sport... I just watched the final of today's stage... and I did not see a great victory from Dan Martin..

If I was him.. I would feel bad for "wheelsuckink" wiggles all the way and sprint in the line... some from TGBM...

Maybe this is the culture of the sport and look like a normal and "great" win for the "inside" people... but for me.. this win is not a deserved one...

Wiggles was the real and true champion...
I see that you are new to the sport. Maybe being a little more objective will help you in the future.;)
 
Jul 24, 2010
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virandociclista said:
I'm just trying to understand the rules of the sport...

If Wiggins had asked him to come through and help and he didn't, then there would be an issue, but Wiggins was perfectly happy to get in time trial mode and drill it at his own pace.

These finishes are the reason I dislike time bonuses for 1st, 2nd and 3rd though.
 
May 25, 2010
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Fun!

+1 Wiggins
+1 Nibali
+1 Froome
+1 Martin
+1 Mollema.

I watched the final 10k at a birthday without sound. Like a true cycling junkie I asked to turn the tele on during the birthday just so I could watch this hehe.

Purito showing his inconsistency in the big mountains again. Nibali attacking and Wiggins setting the pace of the front group. Martin winning the stage while he also attacked before so he deserved it before Mollema of which I ofcourse hoped he would win. What I didn't know until only 5 minutes ago is that he took the red jersey! Yeeehaaa! :)

Allthough I expect Wiggins or Fuglsang to take the red jersey tomorrow it's still very nice for Mollema.

I predicted Wiggins to win the Vuelta before it started, but I added a big fat wink to it, but he certainly made a step towards winning it. Still a very long way to go though with Angry Lu etc. I wouldn't put my money on him yet :)
 
Oct 26, 2010
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virandociclista said:
I'm just trying to understand the rules of the sport...
There aren't strict rules:)

Martin and Wiggins aren't in the same league of the GC fight (for now) and Wiggins was the one with more interest in putting time in Rodriguez, Anton, Van den Broeck, Scarponi.... That's why he did all that amount of work; I doubt he was concerned with the stage win.
 
Jul 10, 2011
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hatcher said:
If Wiggins had asked him to come through and help and he didn't, then there would be an issue, but Wiggins was perfectly happy to get in time trial mode and drill it at his own pace.

These finishes are the reason I dislike time bonuses for 1st, 2nd and 3rd though.

I think that when guys from differente teams are riding together... they need to work together or if some of the guys can not help at the front.. then this guy that did not help do not have the right to atack the group.

for this reason that I did not see the Martin's win a great one...

but thanks for the answers!
 
Aug 19, 2011
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virandociclista said:
I'm just trying to understand the rules of the sport...

For someone with a finish like Dan Martin to manage to cling onto Wiggins will have taken a great effort (look at all the pure climbers who were dropped) and as others have pointed out, Martin helped bring the stage to life. I think that was a hard earned (and totally merited) stage win. Plus, after his 40 second penalty, I'm sure Martin will take any 20 second bonus he can get. Thats coming from someone who was cheering on Wiggins. He likely won't even care much about not winning the stage as he now has bigger fish to fry.
 
Jul 10, 2011
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trevim said:
There aren't strict rules:)

Martin and Wiggins aren't in the same league of the GC fight (for now) and Wiggins was the one with more interest in putting time in Rodriguez, Anton, Van den Broeck, Scarponi.... That's why he did all that amount of work; I doubt he was concerned with the stage win.

so... last post about this assunt!

if was nibbles that atacked at the line after all the wiggles work.. will you agree with me?! :D
 
Jan 27, 2011
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virandociclista said:
if was nibbles that atacked at the line after all the wiggles work.. will you agree with me?! :D

No seeing he has been attacking multiple times, animating the race on the mountain.
 
Feb 20, 2010
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Wiggins didn't actually attack anybody. He just ground everybody into dust like he's Ivan Basso or something. Nibali and Martin had been away attacking. If Pardilla or Seeldraeyers had made it to the finish and took the win I wouldn't mind either, because they did a lot of animating the climb too. No, there weren't people on different teams working together there. Froome did all the work, then Wiggins took over. Wiggins wasn't really working to distance the people behind him; if he'd wanted to do that he'd have been setting an inconsistent pace, dropping back and bolting. No, he'd already distanced everybody he wanted to distance, bar Nibali.

If you watch cycling regularly you'll see quite clearly that, in the case of a group finish, the absolute worst place to be is at the front, because every rider behind can get the jump on you. Very rarely does the guy who leads out take the win. The only notable exception I can think of recently is Evans in Montalcino, who just roared around that final corner and took the last ounce of strength out of Cunego, who was on his wheel hoping to take the stage. Wiggins knew he had to be on the front because it was him who was setting the ferocious pace, and the others knew that he was the strongest, but was no use in a sprint finish - Wiggins is a rubbish sprinter. Wiggins therefore knew that his only way to win the stage would be to drop them all, the likes of Martin and Mollema knew that they could outsprint him, and aimed to do that.

Because Wiggins was out for GC time, he was content to sacrifice not winning the stage for grinding out a bit more time on his rivals; he probably didn't expect 3 of the 4 with him (not counting Froome as Froome obviously wouldn't pass him) to get past him so that he took 0 bonus seconds, but he took that gamble, because that gamble was well worth taking.
 
Aug 18, 2010
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Havetts said:
No seeing he has been attacking multiple times, animating the race on the mountain.

Exactly. Of the guys still there at the end, any of Martin, Nibali, Froome or Wiggins would have "deserved" the victory. They were the guys who put their faces in the wind and animated things.

Not that cycling has much to do with deserving anyway.
 
Jun 14, 2010
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Anyone with an idea where I can catch a replay of todays stage, or at least the mountain. Preferably something that can be downloaded or at least paused to load rather than a stream and preferably not in Dutch.
 
Jan 27, 2011
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The Hitch said:
Anyone with an idea where I can catch a replay of todays stage, or at least the mountain. Preferably something that can be downloaded or at least paused to load rather than a stream and preferably not in Dutch.

Cyclingtorrents.nl

or probably on the TSF site.