The final competitive day of a Grand Tour can often be a
deciding one as much as it is a coronation for the winning rider, so it feels
strange to be writing off our tip Vincenzo Nibali’s chances of a second grand
tour of the season, but Chris Horner’s dominant showings in the crucial last
week of this Vuelta have left him as the winner elect, with the veteran just
2/9 to take his first grand tour victory today despite holding a gap of only
three seconds on Giro D’Italia winner Vincenzo Nibali.
The battle for the red on this of all stages – the Angilru,
Europe’s hardest summit finish – should
be fantastic, but on a day like this Alejandro Valverde and Joaquin Rodriguez –
who took yesterday’s stage with a brilliant sprint in the final kilometere cannot be reasonably discounted, with the two
Spaniards 1.06 and 1.57 behind respectively.
Before the infamous summit finish, there are three
categorized climbs which are seen as appetisers but are actually all vicious in
their own right over a stage that’s just 142.2 km long, meaning it’ll be raced
to the max given it’s the final day. The Alto de la Cabruñana is the easiest
one on paper but has an average gradient of just over 6% and is no short test
at 5.2 km. The Alto de Tenebredo is a rather vicious spike, going on for just
3.4 km but having an average of 10.5%, and before the Angrilru, we have the
Alto Del Coridial, which has an average of 9.6% and goes on for just 5.3km
before the immediate descent and then, the Angrilru. Averaging 10.2km for
12.2km sounds bad enough, but after the first 6KM – generally 8 or 9% - the
climbe goes brutal and stays in double digits until the end, including a
hellish last 3km which the graph – borrowed from Mikel Conde’s ‘C-Cycling
blogspot – shows, with no percentages under 13% and slopes of 23.5%.
It’s the hardest summit finish in cycling and right from the
start, one for pure climbers. And of those this year, Chris Horner is ending
the Vuelta by far the strongest and despite holding only a 3 second lead, but
he took 6 seconds out of Nibali on yesterday’s cat 2 and to add to the near 20
seconds he gained on him at Pena Carbega. The same performance today, unless
Nibali improves, will see an absolute trashing and it’s hard to get away from
him as the outstanding win favourite today.
Rodriguez took 11 seconds out of everyone yesterday and
while not having the same Vuelta that he did a year ago, is in winning shape,
and he did beat Horner on Monday, although he was well left behind on Pena
Carbega. There’s a school of thought that he’s not a threat to Horner but I
hardly see such a thing happenings and both him and Valverde are likely to be
marked fiercely.
Away from the big men – as a break has gone all the way,
although pure climbers will need to be in there – Igor Anton gets the vote.
Anton has fallen short on the GC but is sure to make an effort to get away, has
previous on the Angilru and is one of the best handlers of double digit
percentages going – having won on Monte Zocoolan in 2011, and also finished
just 1.21 behind having attacks from behind the Peloton.
Advice
1 pt Chris Horner (2/1 general)
1 pt Igor Anton (25/1 general)
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