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Vuelta a Espana: Stage 2 preview

Daniel Navarro of Cofidis out of the saddle battles to hang onto the peloton during the Vuelta Ciclista al Vais Pasco. (Photo: Stephanie Constand)
Roar Guru
20th August, 2016
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The first road stage of the Vuelta gets underway from the town of Ourense Capital Termal, with the riders completing 160 kilometres before reaching the first sprint finish of the town along the coast town of Baiona.

The route is lumpy, but that is standard for most sprint stages at the Vuelta.
There is one categorised climb on the route, the category three climb of the Alto de Fontefria. It is a long climb of over eight kilometres, however the average gradient is only 3.2 per cent.

The only other obstacle on the route will be the intermediate sprint, which interestingly comes inside the final 19 kilometres. The sprinters teams will be hoping to leave the breakaway out off the front until after this point, to reduce the likelihood of riders wanting to attack away to gain the intermediate sprint, and the time bonuses which come with it.

From the intermediate sprint point in the town of Vigo, until the end of the stage in Baiona, some 19 kilometres down the road, the riders will ride along the coast, making positioning for the general classification men extremely important if the wind is up.

Another point about sprint stages at the Vuelta is the fact that the sprinters field at this Grand Tour is traditionally not as strong as the Giro or the Tour, often making the sprints quite chaotic and dangerous.

Even though I could pick out three favourites, early stages of the Vuelta are often hard to predict, so it will be interesting to see which teams come to the front to control the race. I anticipate Etixx, Giant-Alpecin and Dimension Data will back their protected rider to come up with the goods in the final dash to the line.

Riders to watch out for today include Jose Joawuin Rojas (Movistar), Daniele Bennati (TInkoff), Jean-Pierre Drucker (BMC), Magnus Cort Nielsen (Orica Bike-Exchange), Nikias Arndt (Giant-Alpecin), Niccolo Bonifazio (Trek-Segafredo), Tosh van der Sande (Lotto Soudal), Gianni Meersman (Etixx Quickstep), Patrick Bevin (Cannondale-Drapac) and Kristan Sparagli (Dimension Data),

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