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2013 Vuelta a Espana – Stage 11 preview

Orica-GreenEDGE rider Michael Matthews is one of the favourites for this year's Brabantse Pijl. (Image: Team Sky).
Roar Guru
3rd September, 2013
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La Vuelta a Espana resumes after the rest day with a 38.8km individual time trial through the countryside surrounding Tarragona.

Whilst the parcours features the Category 3 Alto del Moncayo, at a consistent average gradient of 4.1% it shouldn’t prove an insurmountable challenge.

With the stage suited more to a constant effort rather than continuous bursts of accelerations, Stage 11 doesn’t favour the climbers that greatly.

It will be interesting to see how the peloton recover from the first rest day of la Vuelta a Espana. With some riders notorious for being sluggish in the saddle the day after for whichever unpreventable reasons.

While preferable to a challenging mountain stage, the individual time trial could still damage the chances of those slow out of the starting block after the rest day.

The weather should not cause too much of an issue for the peloton. With the heat being their main concern, with temperatures once again forecast to be around 30 degrees celsius.

The course is exposed to the wind, however, only light winds (20 km/h) are forecast for the stage so far though it may cause a few issues should it (the wind) decide to strengthen before or during the time trial.

Whether the wind is strong or light, the riders should benefit from a favourable tailwind in to the stage finish at Tarazona after ascending Alto del Moncayo.

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Combined with an almost constant and straightforward descent in to Tarazona, the peloton should be able to finish the second half of the stage quite rapidly.

Despite the presence of the Alto del Moncayo, the outstanding favourite for today’s stage is the ‘Panzerwagen’ himself Tony Martin.

The Omega Pharma – Quick-Step rider has become the man to beat in the individual time trial these past few years.

Consistently defeating former arch-rival Fabian Cancellara of Radioshack-Leopard when the two are on a level playing field, with injury and mechanical issues usually the recent reason for an upset.

However, one can hardly write off the Swiss rider, Cancellara, from causing an upset today. Coming after a rest day who knows what kind of weird performances we might witness during Stage 11.

Known as ‘Spartacus’, the Swiss has reportedly decided to focus less on the time trial discipline and place greater emphasis on his career as a major favourite for several of the one day “Classic” and the upcoming World Championships.

There are several other time trial specialists currently riding la Vuelta a Espana, however, it would take something special for one of them to claim the stage victory.

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With the World Championships looming we should potentially see a strong performance from Italian time trialist Marco Pinotti of BMC.

The Italian should be keen to test himself against the clock and his fellow time trial rivals ahead of the massive day in Tuscany.

Personally, I expect Vincenzo Nibali of Team Astana to perform the greatest out of the General Classification contenders.

The Italian has been improving his time trial capabilities and is already a great climber and daredevil descender.

Despite Chris Horner often being decent against the clock, recent results have been against him when the American and the Italian have come face to face. However, perhaps Horner will deliver another surprising display to fend off the self-styled “Shark of Messina”.

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