Vuelta a Espaรฑa
This year, the Vuelta starts on Saturday from Italy, where the first 4 stages will be held, the 4^th^ finishing in France. Curiously, there is no rest day between this Italian sequence and the following stages in Spain. In spite of the presence of a high-speed train connection between the 4^th^ stage finish and the 5^th^ stage location, the transfer will be by plane.
There will be 1 time bonus sprint per stage. Depending on the stage, it will either be at one Intermediate Sprint or at the top of a categorised mountain climb.
For points classification: there will be 1 Intermediate Sprint per stage, rewarded by 20 points (only the first 5 riders score points). Concerning stages victories, only the very first and last stages bring 50 points; the rest (half-half) brings either 20 or 30 points; points are always awarded to the first 15 riders.
Mountain classification (white jersey with blue dots):
- 4^th^ cat. : 2 points (2 riders)
- 3^rd^ cat. : 3 points (3 riders)
- 2^nd^ cat. : 5 points (3 riders)
- 1^st^ cat. : 10 points (5 riders)
- HC : 15 points (6 riders)
- Angliru : 20 points (6 riders)
The 5 Pro-Teams engaged are: Q36.5, Lotto, IPT, and the 2 Spanish teams Burgos and Caja Rural. Kern Pharma who won 3 stages (!) last year was not invited.
Vingegaard (๐ฉ๐ฐ Visma), who has yet to win something this year, is probably the favourite for GC, with Almeida (๐ต๐น UAE) as a contender. Carapaz cancelled his participation again, after cancelling his participation on the Tour of France... Outsiders could be Tiberi (๐ฎ๐น Bahrein), Gall (๐จ๐ญ Decathlon), Ciccone (๐ฎ๐น Lidl-Trek), O'Connor (๐ฆ๐บ Jayco), perhaps Gaudu (๐ซ๐ท FDJ) if he suddenly returns to being a pro rider.
Pedersen (๐ฉ๐ฐ Lidl-trek) will go for the green jersey and stage wins. I fail to see any contender or even outsider, as there are almost no top sprinter (but Philipsen (๐ง๐ช Alpecin)) or 4x4 riders (but Pidcock (๐ฌ๐ง Q36.5) ?) on the startlist.
Nothing seems to have happened in the mountain part, except for the first climb to decide of the breakaway.
Nothing happened in the valleys, nothing happened on the punchy climb 40 km from the line.
Gaudu (๐ซ๐ท FDJ) attempted to get a time bonus at the I.S. but finished 5^th^ behind a pair of Lidl-Trek and a pair of IPT. Vingegaard (๐ฉ๐ฐ Visma) looked like he was going to take part in the sprint, but stayed watching the others when it really kicked in. Philipsen๐ง๐ช and the whole Alpecin team didn't do a single effort to contest the sprint.
Then Armirail (๐ซ๐ท Dรฉcathlon), out of boredom, decided to break away alone with still 30 km to go.
There was a crash of several riders 10 km from the line, at low /very low speed. Then, the trains accelerated as it is common, but strangely, the speed seemed to go down again after the 5 km banner.
Pedersen (๐ฉ๐ฐ Lidl-Trek) lost himself in the last curves. Philipsen (๐ง๐ช Alpecin) stayed behind his launcher way too long before kicking his sprint. Therefore Turner (๐ฌ๐ง Ineos) wins. Pedersen showed a rather good finish but he started from far, thus only caught up one of the 6 guys battling for victory. It is yet another failure for Lidl-Trek, but Pedersen's 6^th^ place is just enough, together with his good Intermediate Sprint, to take the Green jersey before Vernon (๐ฌ๐ง IPT) 4^th^ today and Philipsen 2^nd^ today.
Gaudu๐ซ๐ท stayed ahead a long time but went backwards in the end; however it was sufficient to arrive enough places before Vingegaard๐ฉ๐ฐ and get the Red jersey the Dane wasn't interested in keeping.
Nicolau (๐ช๐ธ Caja Rural) took the Dotted jersey, but not by much as today's climbs were only ranked as 2^nd^ and 3^rd^ categories and the points were shared among the breakaway partakers. I don't know if there were big fights for the mountain sprints or not, as the TV coverage started only after all climbs were finished.