La Vuelta a Espana 2015: Stage 13 live race updates, blog

Stage Results:

Stage 13 of the 2015 Vuelta a Espana could almost be described as a weird one before it was eventually taken out by Nelson Oliveira (Lampre- Merida) out of a massive breakaway, in a solo move ahead of Julien Simon (Cofidis) and Nicolas Roche (Sky).

On a day where a breakaway was expected to reign supreme, it took an incredibly long time for one to form at the head of the race. The first 50km of the day were full of failed attacks with the main aggressor being Sylvain Chavanel (IAM)

Eventually a 24 man group was able to go clear, although originally it was in parts. Three parts of a big breakaway eventually formed as one and were able to set about building a lead on a peloton who obviously didn’t want to give them a massive lead.

Making the day’s breakaway was:

Mikael Cherel, Rinaldo Nocentini (both Ag2r), Alessandro de Marchi (BMC), David Arroyo (Caja Rural),Yohan Bagot, Julien Simon (both Cofidis), Niki Terpstra, Gianluca Brambilla (both Etixx), Kenny Elissonde, Kevin Reza (both FDJ), Sylvain Chavanel, Jerome Coppel (both IAM), Ruben Plaza, Valerio Conti, Nelson Oliveira (all Lampre), Maxime Monfort (Lotto – Soudal), Jose Joaquin Rojas (Movistar), Stephen Cummings (MTN – Qhubeka), Cameron Meyer (Orica), Yukiya Arashiro, Romain Sicard (both Euopcar), Pawel Poljanski (Tinkoff – Saxo)

This group stuck together over the first two climbs and through the intermediate sprint working well together to gain an advantage of over 4 minutes. The peloton was led by Astana with the sprinters teams clearly not interested in forming any sort of chase, knowing it was too hard for their men down near the end of the stage.

However, upon reaching the final climb, things would begin to light up at the front of the race. With an advantage that was beginning to push 5 minutes, and a peloton clearly not interested in forming any sort of chase the breakaway got cracking on attacking and looking for the stage win.

The first man to launch was eventual stage winner Oliveira who went away. He got a maximum advantage of about 30 seconds heading uphill before the race was brought back together. Sylvain Chavanel had also gone with him on that attack.

Next it was the turn of Pawel Poljanski (Tinkoff – Saxo) to have a crack at going up the road, however like the attack before him he was caught.

Coming over the top of the climb Oliveira would launch his winning attack. No one chased and he managed to increase his advantage incredibly heading downwhill. So much so that by the time he got back onto the flat the stage was technically done. No one was catching him.

Oliveira went onto claim the stage by a minute to Julien Simon who led the sprint home for second.

Fabio Aru maintains his red jersey and both Gianluca Brambilla (Etixx) and Sicard (Europcar) sneak into the top 10 on the overall.

Today though, before the mountains tomorrow, Oliveira doing the job for Lampre to pick up the stage.

Stage preview:

The 2015 Veutla a Espana continues with Stage 13 which might as well have been designed by some of the best opportunists in the peloton because it has breakaway written all over it. Join The Roar for live race updates and coverage from 10:15pm (AEST).

With three categorised climbs and it being up and down all day long, it will be incredibly difficult for the sprinters teams to control the race. To set themselves up for a sprint finish would almost take a miracle despite the nature of that finish line which isn’t too hard.

The stage itself stretches a distance of 178 kilometres from Calatayud and then working its way north to Tarazona. Heading into Stage 13 we have Fabio Aru (Astana) sitting in the red jersey after that massive stage in Andorra a couple of days ago. We shouldn’t see any major changes, however the riders will have to be careful with a long descent and uphill ramps before the finish line. Any small mistakes could lead to split and riders losing time.

From the start line the riders will begin climbing almost instantly with an uncategorised hill. This goes for around 10 kilometres in an up and down type of ways before they have a steady descent for about 15 km.

From there the road will have a gradual uphill with a couple of spikes that go both up and down. The first categorised climb will be the Alto Collada de Oseja which is 8.2kilometres at a gradient of 3.7 per cent officially. The climb is reached after 53.6 kilometres before a short sharp descent.

Next on the menu is the biggest climb of the day, the category 1 Alto de Beraton. This goes on for about 10.9 kilometres at once again, 3.7 per cent. A long, long descent of about 46 kilometres follows with a few uphill kicks throughout which will take the riders to within 50 kilometres of the finish line.

From their, the lumpy nature of the stage continues before the intermediate sprint is reached after 135 kilometres, with the next climb starting straight afterwards. This is the category 3 Alto de Moncayo which goes for 8.5 kilometres at 4.5 per cent. From the top of the climb it continues on a slightly uphill trajectory for about 7 kilometres before the peloton plunge downhill for about 10kilometres. It continues on a slight downhill before the final kilometres are reached.

After a roundabout with 2 kilometres to go, the peloton will take on about 1.5 kilometres of slight uphill. This is before a slight kick downhill, the back up before the final 250 metres are straight and flat.

For a victory from the breakaway watch out for names like Rinaldo Nocentini (Ag2r), Daniel Navarro (Cofidis), Amael Moinard (BMC), Sylvain Chavanel (IAM), Johann Van Zyl (MTN – Qhubeka) and Adam Hansen (Lotto – Soudal)

If the sprinters did by some miracle hang on then the favourite has to be John Degenkolb (Giant – Alpecin) along with the likes of Darryl Impey (Orica-GreenEDGE), Jose Joaquin Rojas Danny Van Poppel (Trek).

Prediction: Breakaway all the way for this one. Adam Hansen has had a quiet year and I expect him to be a prominent feature out front.

Join The Roar for live coverage of this stage from 10:15pm (AEST) and don’t forget to leave your comments if you are following along.

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