Stybar wins first Grand Tour stage in Vuelta

Zdenek Stybar (Omega Pharma-QuickStep) confirmed his recent run of form while Philippe Gilbert (BMC) was left to rue a missed opportunity to open his account as world champion in a dramatic end to stage 7 of the Vuelta a España in Mairna del Aljarafe, on the outskirts of Seville.

Stybar moved smoothly across to Gilbert’s wheel when he zipped off the front with 9 kilometres still remaining, and the pair formed a silken working alliance on the technical run-in to the finish, gliding through roundabouts and technical corners that the more cumbersome peloton had to tackle with instalments.

The pair entered the final kilometre with a buffer of 12 seconds and, perhaps wise to Gilbert’s desperation to break his duck in the rainbow jersey, Stybar steadfastly refused to take the bait when the Belgian slowed entering the finishing straight, calculating that Gilbert simply had more to lose. And so it proved. With Orica-GreenEdge leading the charge behind at a perilously close distance, Gilbert was the first to blink and he opened the sprint with 200 metres to go.

Shortly afterwards, Stybar swooped past him and although Gilbert managed to close the gap in the closing metres, he simply ran out of road. The duo dived for the line at the same time, but their contrasting expressions betrayed the outcome even before the photo finish was consulted – Stybar had edged out a despondent Gilbert by a tyre’s width. Robert Wagner (Belkin) led the peloton home just behind the two leaders, winning the sprint for third place ahead of Adrien Petit (Cofidis).

“It’s not every day that you can win against the world champion so I’m very happy,” a beaming Stybar said afterwards. “Since winning the Eneco I feel really good but I must say the first stages here were really hard for me as I hadn’t recovered, but this gives me a lot of confidence.”

After the previous day’s finale brought heartbreak for his teammate Tony Martin when his 174 kilometre solo break was snuffed out just shy of the line, history must surely have said to Stybar not to hope when he found himself off the front inside the closing kilometres here.

Stybar’s rally off the front with Gilbert was not born of a whim, however. The Czech had spotted the twists and turns of the final ten kilometres in the road book beforehand and realised that it might provide fertile terrain for late attackers.

“Tony fought so hard and we were so proud. He gave us such morale and we were really very motivated for the stage today,” Stybar said. “After 100 kilometres, I said to my directeur sportif that if there were attacks on the last climb, I would go, otherwise I would work for Gianni [Meersman] in the sprint.

“I’d looked at the road book and I was really thinking of going in a break as the last 10k was very technical and there was a good chance to stay away, so it was the perfect scenario for the team.”

Not that everyone agreed with Stybar’s cheery assessment of the stage’s closing kilometres, with Joaquim Rodriguez (Katusha) labelling the final as “shameful.” “It was very dangerous,” he complained, a thought echoed by Samuel Sanchez (Euskaltel-Euskadi), who decried the proximity of spectators to the peloton on the narrow streets in the finale. “You have to think of our security,” Sanchez said.

Dan Martin (Garmin-Sharp) was a faller with 11 kilometres to go, and the Irishman lost 1:32 in the general classification, which is still led by Vincenzo Nibali (Astana). Nibali finished safely in the peloton to maintain a lead of 3 seconds over Chris Horner (RadioShack-Leopard) and 8 over Nicolas Roche (Saxo-Tinkoff).

How it unfolded

Blue skies and soaring temperatures greeted the peloton as it rolled out of Almendralejo on the long road south into Andalusia, and the script seemed a pre-ordained one – a break would go clear early on, build a sizeable lead and then the peloton would shut it down as relentlessly as that sun that beat down from above.

Marco Pinotti (BMC), Christian Knees (Sky) and Francisco Javier Aramendia (Caja Rural) duly obliged by clipping off the front after 11 kilometres, and the trio built up a maximum lead in excess of seven minutes before the peloton stirred into action behind.

Before Tony Martin’s break the previous day, Pinotti had earmarked the back-to-back flat stages preceding the weekend’s action as ideal terrain for riders preparing for the world time trial championships, and with Florence in mind, the Italian put in a fine afternoon’s work at the head of the race.

The break’s lead was just 1:25 when they came through the finish area for the first time with 30 kilometres remaining, however, and they were duly swept up 16 kilometres from home, with Pinotti the last man standing.

Fabian Cancellara and his RadioShack-Leopard team set about winding up the pace from there on in, but as well as providing him with a useful work out ahead of the Worlds, Cancellara’s turn on the front also indirectly served to pave the way for the current rainbow jersey Gilbert to go on the offensive.

Twelve months ago, Gilbert began to put a different slant on a troubled season by winning two stages of the Vuelta ahead of his world championships triumph, and there was a distinct hint of his old sparkle here as he pounced on the opportunity to attack with 9 kilometres to go.

Unfortunately for Gilbert, however, he had the on-form and confident Stybar for company in his late raid and in the game of inches that was the finishing sprint, that assurance perhaps made the crucial difference.

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