2010 Vuelta a Espana: Stage 3; Marbella - Malaga,157.3 km

Fantastic finish by Gilbert.
It looks like everybody forgot April and what Gilbert can do on this kind of uphill finish. Strength of Amstel, obviously, made them forget. Or was it time that made them forget?

 

Well, unlike at the Tour de France, Christian Van de Velde made it through stage 3 without cracking any bones. Unfortunately, he cracked and lost almost 15 minutes. Andy Schleck was back there with him too... Odd.

 

Andy doesn't care for the race, while Van de Velde didn't plan to race it at all, but in teams' interest he lined up.
I've mentioned before - it's funny race, organizers are hoping that they'll, with interesting design of the route, attract big guns to actually race, but riders are often just working off their job... Showing up in interest of their team owners and sponsors.
It's a pity. Audience would love to see all of them fighting for the podium.

P.S.
It looks like Andy will do just one GT per season from next year.

 

I can only wonder if Andy has already said he'll work for Frank... but Christian, that's something else. Isn't he supposed to be the team leader? Granted there was a fairly big climb before the finish (a 1st Cat) but you'd expect a little more.

 

Yes, he has.

 

really hasn't been that good a year for garmin, has it? time for vaughters to do a big team shake up this off season?

 

The shake up is in progress.
Garmin - Cervelo project looks similar to HTC. More of less important victories is better card to play on, than couple of big ones. What I want to say is - stage and sprint victories are doing as good job as GT victory... Maybe even better... From marketing point of view, off course.
You're much more hearing HTC, HTC... Than Saxo or Astana.

 

Perhaps Andy is saving himself for his brother in the big mountains (that sounded bad; I assure you there is no sexual connotation with that statement). Christian's performance was surprising to say the least. I thought he had a chance for the top ten, but judging by today's performance it doesn't look likely.

Glibert has had a pretty good season (understatement). He had a great classics season and its nice to see the Belgian having late season success. I looks like Liquigas has high hopes for this years Vuelta. They did a lot of the pace making towards the end of the stage, but couldn't match Gilbert.

Also, without Sammy Sanchez it looks like Igor Anton may be a dark horse for Euskaltlel. Still too early, we need to wait for the big mountains to se what Frankie, Rodriguez, Nibali, Menchov and the slew of others have in there energy banks.

 

Good win by gilbert, but to early to tell who the stronger riders are in this race.

 

Wouldn't be surprised to see Gilbert in rainbow bands next season!.