[occ2] OCC Tuesday Night Time Trial - week 9 - rained out - Vuelta heats up
From:
"Brian Goetke goetke1@PROTECTED [occ2]" <occ2@PROTECTED>
In-Reply-To:
(no subject)
Date:
August 23rd 2024
Mother Nature was her usual finicky self Tuesday night. Scattered showers peppered the TT area. I drove the course and found the north side of the course bone dry but the south side was still very wet. No one took a chance to come out and I don't blame them.
Next week is looking pretty good. Let's hope for clear skies!
Vuelta a Espana News:
Stage 3: Wout van Aert was nicked at the line in Stage 2 sprint. He made sure that wouldn't happen in Stage 3. He put in a long sprint to the line to take the stage and maintain the Red jersey.
Stage 4: Mtn top finish on a hellishly hot day! Temps hovered around 100 deg F ! The final Cat 1 climb included long ramps of 18-20% ! Ouch. The peloton melted away the breakaways margin to the point that they were in sight as the small remaining peloton made the left turn onto the concrete road for the final 5k. Roglic set the pace at the front. When the road hit 20% at 4k, Gall jumped out to make his move. He was eventually re-absorbed and the lost touch at the 3k mark. When the slope eased up Almeida, young American Matthew Riccitello, Gall and Mikel Landa caught up to the leaders Roglic, Enric Mas and Van Eetvelt. As they approached the final finishing ramp, Landa took off, Van Aetvelt caught him and went for the win... it seemed like he started to raise his hand in victory about 10 feet from the finish only to see Roglic's wheel to cross the line ahead of him. Doh! He won't ever do that again.
The lead group all finished on the same time. Defending champ American Sepp Kuss finished 28 sec back. American McNulty 58 sec back.
Roglic in Red.
Stage 5: flattish route. Bittner outsprints van Aert and Groves. van Aert keeps the ugly green jersey.
Stage 6: approx 115 miles 12,000 ft of climbing. Odd start as the riders lined up next to the checkout isle of major sponsor Carrefour Jerez. The riders must have fueled up quite well. The first hour was very fast and hectic. Eventually a group of 30 broke free of the peloton. The breakaway was reduced to about 13 riders as the pretenders were cast off. This group included Ben O'Conner who has finished in the top 5 in the Giro and TdF and has won a stage in each. With about 40 miles to go the breakaway had a 5 minute lead on the peloton. But, clearly some weren't contributing to the pace. 3 miles later as they started the 2nd major climb, O'Connor and Leemreize (never heard of him) bolted off the front. O'Connor takes the bonus 3 seconds at the top of the climb. He is doing most of the work. The remnants of the breakaway attempt to bridge up the leading duo. At the 25 mile mark, a group of 3 have managed to get within 20 seconds of the two leaders. The peloton has yet to react and sits over 5 minutes back. What is Roglic thinking? At the 19 mile mark the group of 3 has lost time on O'Connor... now almost a minute back! On the 2nd to last climb O'Connor has left Leemreize who wasn't helping all that much anyway. He crests the climb 6 minutes over the peloton! Only 15 miles to go. As long as he doesn't crash or bonk on the last climb the red jersey will be his. It will be a matter of how large a lead he will have. This is how Sepp Kuss took the Vuelta last year. He got in a break and Remco didn't think Kuss would keep the red jersey. Could Roglic be making the same mistake? 5k to go and the lead over the peloton is 6:40! O'Connor takes the stage! He was just under 2 minutes behind Roglic to start the stage, he is now 4:51 ahead of the 2nd place Roglic. Roglic is gambling on O'Connor being inconsistent in his performance. It's a risky gamble with that much time to have to make up.
Things just got very interesting!
Stage 7: TODAY. Lumpy stage. May be too tough for the pure sprinters to end up in a bunch sprint at the end. I haven't watched it yet.
Brian
Directore de contrarreloj
315-727-1458
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