Farrar fantastic in Lorca

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Tyler Farrar (Garmin-Transitions) claimed the second Vuelta a España stage win of his career and scored an important psychological victory over Mark Cavendish (HTC-Columbia) in an enthralling sprint finish in Lorca. The American roared past Cavendish in the final 100m to take the win, while Koldo Fernandez (Euskaltel-Euskadi) closed rapidly to take second place on the day.

"Of course it's always nice to win against the best sprinter in the world but it's even better to win a stage at the Vuelta. I'm very happy," Farrar said. "Winning always helps to build confidence. There are still a lot of sprints to come at the Vuelta. I'm already happy with one win. Any other one coming after today's would be a bonus."

Race leader Philippe Gilbert finished safely in the bunch to earn another day in the red leader's jersey. His Omega Pharma-Lotto team maintained the difference between the bunch and the escapees under six minutes for most of the stage. "To have four riders in the lead was the perfect scenario for us," the Belgian said. "It made our day easy."

In the closing kilometres of the stage, rather than the anticipated HTC-Columbia procession, it was the Lampre-Farnese Vini team that headed the peloton in the service of Alessandro Petacchi. Coming under the red kite, it seemed as though Cavendish had missed his lead-out train completely, and it later emerged that he had lost lead-out man Matt Goss to a puncture.

The Manxman is nothing if not resourceful, however, and while Petacchi slumped to 5th in the finishing straight in spite of Danilo Hondo’s expert lead-out, Cavendish picked his way through the chaos to hit the front 400 metres from the line down the right hand side of the road.

However, the normally peerless Cavendish misjudged his effort on this occasion. On the deceptively long finishing straight on the Avenida de Europa, he went far too early in the sprint and died a death in the last 200m.

"My lead-out man Matt Goss punctured with 5km to go. So I had no choice but start sprinting from far. It was hard to hold it for so long," Cavendish explained afterward.

Meanwhile, the canny Farrar had more than enough left in the tank to come around Cavendish and hold on for a win that was more comfortable than he appeared to realise.

"The wind made the sprint a little bit crazy. It was easy for riders to come from behind, but I like this kind of very fast sprint. When Cavendish went on the right, I was able to take his wheel."

Farrar revealed after the stage that he had been feeling poorly last night and this morning, but felt better as the stage went along.

"It was a little strange today because I was alone. Normally in a stage like this, we have riders working at the front but I was not confident after suffering during yesterday's stage. Today I felt better and better. Only with 20km to go I told my teammates that I was up for the sprint.

"I didn't have a real lead-out man since Julian Dean is still injured. In the last 10 kilometres, Matt Wilson did absolutely fantastic work. When he took me where I had to be with 2km to go, it was just up to me after that."

Once Farrar blew past, Cavendish knew his day was done and he sat up, allowing the fast-finishing Koldo Fernandez to pip him for second and offer the only potential resistance to Farrar’s show of strength in the closing metres. Matteo Tosatto (Quick Step) followed in 4th place, ahead of Petacchi and Sebastien Chavanel (FDJ), but all three were mere spectators in the Farrar-Cavendish match-up.

Farrar’s sprint campaign at the Tour de France was truncated by the broken wrist that he suffered on stage two but the Garmin-Transitions man bounced back from that disappointment with victory at the Vattenfall Cyclassics. The American’s rich streak of August form has carried over to the Vuelta and after 3rd place on Sunday’s opening road stage, he made no mistake in Lorca.

The calm before the storm

While the dramatic sprint finale gave the stage a blockbuster finish, the preceding 198 kilometres had excitement levels more in keeping with a clumsily-recorded holiday video. As soon as the flag was dropped four riders went on the attack and the peloton was more than happy to leave them to it, with the soaring temperatures and rolling terrain of the opening days in Andalucia having taken their toll.

The four out front were Pierre Rolland (BBox Bouygues Telecom), David Gutierrez (Footon-Servetto), Jose Vincente Toribio (Andalucia) and Arnaud Labbe (Cofidis), and the Franco-Spanish alliance worked smoothly together from the off. Within 5km they had a four-minute lead over the peloton and that advantage increased incrementally over the opening half of the stage.

Once the gap went over the 6-minute mark, Rolland moved into the virtual overall lead, but on one of the few days in the opening week of this Vuelta that didn’t feature a tricky climb in the finale, the sprinters’ teams were never going to allow the breakaway to survive.

The quartet’s advantage reached its maximum with 135km to go, when they had 6:30 over the disinterested peloton, but from that point onwards they began to be reeled back in slowly.

65km from the finish, red jersey Gilbert sent his Omega Pharma-Lotto squad to the front to ensure that he would spend at least another day in the overall lead and once Lampre-Farnese Vini decided to lend a hand, the game was up for the four ahead. Just as the peloton was about to make contact, Rolland decided to go it alone, but all four were swept up a little over 13km from the line and the stage was set for Farrar’s grandstand finish.