2004 Vuelta a Castilla y Leon UCI 2.3

DiabloScott

2004 Vuelta a Castilla-Leon UCI 2.3

This is a 5-day stage race in north/central Spain. Most of the Spanish riders and teams are here but the bigger teams also sent a contingent to the Tour of Romandie this week. Previous winners include Mancebo, Mauri, Piepoli, Casero, and Indurain.

The nine Spanish teams are Illes Balears-Banesto, Liberty Seguros, Euskaltel Euskadi, Saunier Duval-Prodir, Relax-Bodysol, Comunidad Valenciana-Kelme, Costa Almería-Paternina, Café Baqué, plus a national U-23 team. Saunier Duval has an American rider named Tim Johnson riding this year - haven't heard anything about him and was surprised to see USA in the start list… go TIM, whoever you are!

And there's also the French team Brioches with the Beloki brothers, two Portuguese teams, and the Russian team Lokomotiv.

Beloki's really going to have to prove himself here and do something. This is very close to his home turf and if he drops out of this race I don't think he's got a chance in Le Tour. Banesto and ONCE have always been the strong teams for this race and there is an important TTT (CRE) of 32km for Stage 2. Stage 4 ends with a classic mountain top finish on Alto de Morredero. The last stage on Sunday includes enough good climbs to keep the podium open for aggressive challengers; I'm going with Valverde, Gonzalez-Galdeano, and Vicioso. I'm not sure why, but Menchov is not on the start list either here or in Romandie but he won a stage in Paris-Nice so he's in good form and I'm looking for more from him (somewhere).

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DiabloScott

Stage 1.
José Gutiérrez got away in a group of seven and won the sprint to take the leader's jersey. Igor Gonzalez-Galdeano and Gorka Beloki were also in the group and finished with the same time. The other favorites were about 30 seconds down at the end of the day, but Joseba finished in a later group that lost 2m21s.

American Tim Johnson finished in 78th place, almost 6 minutes after the winner. Tim used to ride for Saturn, here's the rider card from his new team: http://www.saunierduval.es/ciclismo...p?idcorredor=36 .

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limerickman

This stage race is a nuggety event - it's tough going - some of the climbs in Northern Spain are by definition tough.

I would watch for riders from the Relax-Bodysol team - they're managed by Lefevere (of Domo fame) and they have been going very well so far this eason.
Nico Mattan and Josep Jufre Pou are going well there - if they're in the R-B team, they'll be up there for a stage or two.

I agree with you about Beloki (and the same applies to JU in Franfurt next Suday) : Beloki needs to finish this race.

I saw the stage 1 results : IGG is in 4th and I expect to see him there or there abouts at the end of this race.
Has Banesto selected Mancebo for this race ?
His name isn't in the top 10 (perhaps he's in Romandie ?).
Mancebo - if he's there - will be in the shakeup too.

Head on the block here is my selection for the top 3 :

1 : IGG
2 : Mattan
3 : Beloki

DiabloScott

Yes, Mancebo is in Romandie.

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DiabloScott

Stage 2 TTT, 32km

Balears-Banesto scored the TTT win today in 40m45s (47km/hr) with Liberty Seguros second. Big surprises in that the Russian Lokomitiv team came in third and the Spanish national U-23 team beat 6 of the 12 pro teams! Beloki's Brioches La Boulangere team came in next to last, giving up three and a half minutes (43km/hr): at least they finished WITH Joseba, but hell I could probably have stayed with the team MYSELF at that speed.

GC after Stage 2: Gutierrez (IBB), David Navas (IBB), Gonzalez-Galdeano (LST)

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limerickman

I see former USPS rider Darius Baranowski is cycling in this event with Liberty Sigouros.
This guy was a very useful climber for LA in the early days.
Fridays stage could be where this guy might feature.

Also watch out for Vlaidimir Karpets - good cyclist - with Banesto.

The route to Mansilla delas Mulas is nugetty as we say !

DiabloScott

Stage 3: 140km

Alejandro Valverde (KEL) scored the stage win today and David Navas (IBB) moved up to 1st on GC.

Valverde beat out Aussie Allan Davis (LST) and Miguel Martín (SDV) in a tight sprint into a stiff headwind for his 8th win this season.

It was a flat, windy stage. A three-man break got away at kilometer 12 and the peloton let them stay two to four minutes in front until about 20km to go when things hotted up and the break got reabsorbed with 12km to go. The course had a lot of turns at this point and the winds were strong so things started splitting up. At 3km to go a crash split the peloton even more and the lead group here included the top finishers for the stage. Joseba must have been involved in the crash because he came in with the very last group 6 minutes behind and he's now 11 minutes off in GC.

The top nine on GC are from IBB and LST because of yesterday's team time trial, Valverde is currently 10th at 2m00s. Tomorrow's queen stage starting in Leon should shake up the standings with its mountaintop finish.

Quoting Valverde, "This is one of those victories that tastes good. Everything they're saying about us these days is a big lie and I'm happy to have won. The triumph is good for me but also for the team. I have drawn strength from where there was none to take and we have summoned all our courage to overcome such a lie." I hope this Kelme/Manzano thing gets straightened out soon and whatever innocent racers remain can move on.

By the way, a "break" in Spanish is "fuga" (Eddy Merckx bicycles had a model called Fuga once) and the guys in the break are "fugados". And "line" (like finish line or intermediate sprint line) is a "meta" so when you see "meta volante" in a Spanish race you'll know what they're talking about. Sometimes Spanish has its own cycling vocabulary and sometimes they use Spanishised English words, like "esprint". I read these reports on AS.com and TodoCiclismo.com to keep in touch with Spain and keep my language skills sharp so it's double the fun.

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DiabloScott

Stage 4 Valverde again! Amid rumors that Kelme is going to lose its Comunitat Valenciana sponsorship.

A stage where Beloki should have shined, he rode in on the autobus.

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