The 2013 La Vuelta a Espana continued overnight, this time with a 169 kilometre long medium mountain stage from Valls to Castelldefels. It was a day of rolling terrain, and it was certainly one where a break could succeed should they put their mind to it.
This was obviously noted by the team’s directeur sportifs, as the break numbered 18 at its largest, with most teams in the peloton represented.
Big names included Michele Scarponi (Lampre), Gianni Meersman (OPQS), Bauke Mollema (Belkin and Ivan Santaromita (BMC).
They were never allowed much time, being such a big group, and for a long portion of the stage were held around the two-minute mark.
The group splintered on the major climb of the day – a first category, and Michele Scarponi led alone across the top.
No major favourites were put in difficulty on the climb, although it did a good job of whittling down the peloton to around forty riders.
Joaquim Rodriguez and Nicolas Roche briefly escaped with one of Rodriguez’s teammate, but were quickly caught, and they never got much of a gap.
Scarponi was joined by the survivors of the break up front to form a group of strong riders; Scarponi, Benat Inxausti, Ivan Santaromita, Jerome Coppel, Warren Barguil, Amets Txurruka, Bauke Mollema, Xabier Zandio and Rinaldo Nocentini.
They worked well together, with Scarponi and Txurruka particularly active in pushing the pace, and the gap soon went up to three minutes.
It was clear with ten kilometres to go that the group were staying away, and would be to the finish, despite the best efforts of the likes of FDJ and Omega Pharma-Quickstep.
Benat Inxausti took a tumble going through a tunnel with six kilometres to go, caused by what looked like a lapse in concentration.
He was up quickly, but it wasn’t just him caught out by the corner, a few men fell from the peloton, including Daniel Moreno, the leader in the points classification.
Once it was abundantly clear that the break were contesting the win, they, unsurprisingly, chose to attack each other.
Scarponi tried and failed to break the group up, and when they came together with 1 to go, it was Warren Barguil of Argos-Shimano who put in a huge dig.
The rest of the group simply looked at each other for too long, and before they knew it Barguil was unreachable.
He took out the stage win in his debut grand tour, and, because he’s French, young and capable of winning, was labeled France’s newest big hope for the future. Poor guy.
There were no changes in the General Classification today, perhaps the big favourites were saving their legs for the tough Pyrenean weekend coming up.
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