Vuelta a España: Stage 4 Preview & Favorites

Movistar and Alejandro Valverde missed out once again on stage 3. They didn’t have enough fresh riders to close the gap on stage 2 and somehow they managed to make the same mistake Monday. Valverde even said he had the legs to win. Instead Chris Horner attacked and took an impressive stage win, only surpassed by his Spanish interview afterwards.

In my overall preview I wrote that Chris Horner was targeting the Red Jersey within the first couple of stages. One of the key points for that to happen was a strong team time trial and thanks to Fabian Cancellara, Horner had a chance to take the jersey. The 41 years old American climber is now the oldest rider ever to win a stage in a Grand Tour and he should have no problems keeping the leader’s jersey on stage 4.

Tuesday’s 189 km long stage takes the riders west from Lalín/A Estrada towards the finishing line in Fisterra. The riders will be battling the crosswind for most of the stage and we could see the peloton getting split up again. After 152.8 km the riders reach the feared ascent up to Mirador de Ézaro. This is only a category 3 climb but the 1.8 km towards the top have an average gradient of 13 %! There are only 34.4 km to go from top of Mirador de Ézaro and a strong team could really blow the race apart. Last year, stage 12 of the Vuelta finished on Mirador de Ézaro and in case you need a re-view click here.

"The stage to the end of the world".
Photo via @lavuelta on Twitter

This stage is called “the stage to end of the world” and it’s easy to see why. With 5 km to go, the peloton turns left and from hereon they simply continue straight out until the road ends. It’s a spectacular finish with a slightly uphill run-in towards the line. The final 2 km kick up with about 3.5 % and this time, Gianni Meersman shouldn’t have problems fighting for the win. Of course, he has to survive Mirador de Ézaro first. There is a soft left-hand corner with 200 meters to go and with a tailwind towards the line, first rider of out this corner most likely wins the stage.

Meersman finished 38^th on stage 3, just 22 seconds behind the favorites. The final kilometer was too hard for the Belgian rider, but the finish in Fisterra is perfect for him. Gianni Meersman arrived to the Vuelta with his eyes on this stage and I think he will be very difficult to beat.

Another strong candidate is Michael Matthews. The former U23 World Champion is a real specialist on these kind of finishes and he comes to the race with two fresh stage wins from Utah in the bag.  GreenEdge didn’t manage to set up Simon Gerrans for stage 3 but I think they have a good chance to set up Matthews for stage 4.

Argos-Shimano have two interesting riders for this stage in Nikias Arndt and Reinardt Janse van Rensburg. Both are very fast on the line in a sprint like this and it will be interesting to see if the two Grand Tour debutants can get over Mirador de Ézaro with the peloton. FDJ.fr also have a strong duo for these kind of finishes. Geoffrey Soupe and Anthony Roux are both in great shape right now. Especially Roux who won stage 4 of Tour of Burgos and finished in top4 on the first three stages of the race.

The following three stages are for the pure sprinters so this is the last chance in a while for the strong puncheurs.

Eurosport is covering this year’s Vuelta a España intensively. Before and after each stage you will get inside information from the many interviews with the riders. The interviewer is Spanish journalist Laura Meseguer. She knows what’s going on inside the peloton and each day she will get you her own personal winner picks for the stage.

For Stage 4, Laura picks Gianni Meersman to win. 

For live coverage of the stage go to steephill.tv

Vuelta Preview - Stage 12

Purito managed to keep the red leader’s jersey with just 1 second after the time trial and now it’s time to make the gap bigger. This is another stage tailor made for Purito and unless a breakaway makes it, it will be a massive surprise if Purito doesn’t take yet another stage win in this Vuelta.

The stage follows the coast line up north from Vilagarcía de Arousa to Dumbría and on paper it looks totally flat - that is, until the last 1900 meters up to Mirador de Ézaro. The average gradient shows 13,5% and with parts up to 25% it sure is perfect for Purito. There are 12 bonus seconds on the line and with three hard mountain stages, starting after Friday, in a row it would be good for Purito to have a bigger gap to Alberto Contador who - as expected - seems to get stronger and stronger every day.

Let the suffering begin! Mirador de Ézaro -1,9km 13,5% avg. 

The fact that everybody knows Purito is the big favorite also means that only few teams - if any - will help Katusha catch the break. Therefore it’s very important for the Russian team that only a tiny break gets off in the beginning. With such a hard week ahead, there is now way they will used up their whole team chasing back a strong break just for Purito to gain a few seconds. Still I’m pretty sure this will end up with the favorites fighting for the win and as you can see I have no doubts Purito will win such a fight.

In case of a break makes it I would like to pick Jan Bakelants as my joker - again. As mentioned before Bakelants has been very showing some great shape in the recent weeks and he is not afraid of attacking either. Furthermore he is fast and even though an extremely steep finish as this one doesn’t suit him perfectly he is still very explosive in an uphill finish.

Winner pick: Purito
Joker: Jan Bakelants

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To make this Vuelta a little bit more interesting I’ve challenged Eurosport blogger Blazin' Saddles to a winner pick duel during the race. You have my winner and joker picks above, here you have Felix':

Winner pick: Philippe Gilbert

Joker: Tiago Machado

Explanation: Looking at the finish, I'm tempted to go for either Rodriguez or Moreno - that ramp seems tailor-made - but the Katusha pair may hold back until the weekend's mountain stages. Gilbert showed that he's riding back into form in Barcelona and that may have been the mental boost he needed. After all, the Belgian won these kinds of stages for fun last year. The likes of Tiralongo, Roche and Rabobank's top ten trio could be dangerous too. As for my wildcard, I first went or local rider Gustavo Cesar, who owes a win to all those people who painted his name in the road for the time trial. But instead, how about Tiago Machado? RadioShack need a win and we're not too far away from the Portuguese border. Plus Machado is no longer any threat on GC. 

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Overall score:

Felix 9 points

Mikkel 6 points 

Right winner pick gives 3 points, if the joker wins it's 5 points while it's 1 points if the joker makes top3 on the stage.