Fantasy Vuelta Stage 4: Clarke Makes His Mark

I thought that Movistar might let a little group get away today. Defending the race lead is a tough job, and they’ve not been getting much help on the front. And so they let Tony Martin, Simon Clarke, Assan Bazayev, Jesus Rosendo and Drew’s favorite, Luis Angel Mate, get a good lead up the road.

 

As the climb of the Valdezcaray approached, it was time for the peloton to pull their fingers out. Team Sky hit the front to try and string it out in the crosswind, and at about the same time, race leader Alejandro Valverde hit the deck. Sky pushed on however, and later claimed not to have known about the Red Jersey’s plight......... I mean how would they? It’s not like the inside of a team car is packed with TVs, Radios and other communication gizmos.

Anyway, Valverde tried to get back on, but things got pretty quick up front, and he ended up trailing-in about a minute behind the group of big-hitters. Alejandro was pretty pissed off when he finished, and claimed that Sky had behaved in an unsporting fashion. Not like back in the Tour when ‘Gentleman Wiggins” waited for Evans when there were tacks all over the road. Maybe he has a point, but then I’m not sure it’s very sporting to store a load of your blood in a Madrid garage, and then get all pissy about it when you get caught by a DNA test.

 

While it was all going a bit wrong for Valverde, it was all going a bit right for Simon Clarke up the road. Having survived in the remains of the break, he outsprinted Tony Martin, to take his first win as a pro.

 

Whatever the rights and wrongs of the Sky-Valverde thing, J-Rod is now the race leader. But he’s got the Froome-Dog snapping at his heels one second back, and Contador at five seconds, not to mention another 15 or so people within a minute.

 

As for how we’re all doing, there's some new scores up now. Although I’m pretty pleased with how the Bile Beans are doing so far, I’m not too impressed with Quintana. The boy was supposed the be a climbing sensation, but he finished nearly ten minutes down today. I can only hope he’s losing time on purpose, so that he can go on some day-long breakaways in the mountains and earn me lots of points.

 

MINI LEAGUE SCORES

Tour De Pance

Rank		Team	Directeur	Score
1		Bile Beans	Vestan Pance	938
2		Evil Penguinbots	Evil King Penguin	861
3		tdm911	Rouleurs	838
4		Mungo Cycling	Mungo	832
5		Charmers	Craigatron	811
6		TEAM ITV4	Andrew Danson	790
7		Dangerous Rogues Under Grey Skies	Blinddrew	700
8		GB expects	Warwick Anderson	690
9		Team MacDream	Elizabeth MacKenzie	685
10		Bertie Frooms all Flavour Beans	Mark	668
11		ENRICO 666	Eric Mortier	642
12		Flying Hutchmen	Hutch	629
13		Hell of the North	Vincent Lavallee	606
14		Haxby Group Pharmacy	Richard Harrison	569
15		Ph.Dizzles	Ben	556
16		Cofeedis	Tom Fee	506

Tomorrow the race will be Vuelting over to Logroño, where things should go the way of the sprinters. I’ll be keeping my fingers crossed for another good finish from Degenkolb.