Pezcyclingnews: Vuelta’15 St.4: Valverde Yet Again!

Race Report: The Green Bullet himself, Alejandro Valverde, was the man in the right place at the right time to win today’s haul into Vejer de la Frontera. As he so often seems to be, the Spanish veteran was just where he needed to be in the final meters of a steep finish to burst past Ireland’s Nicolas Roche for the victory.Today was another scorching day, albeit a slow-burner of a stage with a long-established breakaway left to fry in the sun. The firestorm only kicked off for real inside the final five kilometers with a twisty, technical, up-and-down finish. Virtually all the big names were in there Rodriguez and Sagan among them but it was Valverde who did the business as Sagan seemed to get surprised by the finish.How it played out: It was a snip under (another very hot) 210 kilometers today, as the riders cruised from Estepona to Vejer de la Frontera on the second-longest stage of this year’s Vuelta. Given the mayhem of the last few days with crashes, withdrawals, exclusions and enough polemics to fill an average Giro d’Italia twice over, the relief felt when the early break went was palpable.From the flag, six rocketed clear of the peloton, with a couple of oft-spotted breakaways including LottoNL-Jumbo’s Bert-Jan Lindeman and FDJ’s French strongman Mickael Delage. Lampre-Merida’s Kristijan Durasek was in there alongside Trek Factory Racing’s Markel Irizar, Nikolas Maes from Etixx Quick-Step and Tour of Luxembourg prologue professor Jimmy Engoulvent.After one hour of riding and...

View the full article