Bennati had a leadout; the rest of the contenders—Enrico Gasparotto of Astana, Damiano Caruso of Liquigas, Sep Vanmarcke of Garmin-Cervelo, and Koen De Kort of Skil Shimano—tried to follow his wheel, but didn’t have the speed.
After the finish, Bennati thanked his team, perhaps alluding to the fact that the team will cease to exist after this season—it will merge with RadioShack to become RadioShack-Nissan-Trek.
“This was the last chance the penultimate stage in the Vuelta,” he told Eurosport. “It’s been a very hard Vuelta.
“The last 30 kilometers were very hard but my team did great—I’d like to congratulate them all for the good work that they did today. This is a great victory for a fantastic team. The team time trial was superb
“It’s been a pleasure to be on this team—it’s a victory for them more than me.”
Gasparotto couldn’t get within two lengths of the speeding Benatti once the Leopard-Trek rider launched
Caruso made a huge effort, closing from ten lengths back in the final 100 meters, but could manage no better than third.
The stage started with a huge break—27 riders—which disintegrated on the final climb of the day, the Cat 1 Puerto de Urkiola. Only seven riders were left a third of the way up the climb. At this point Rabobank’s Carlos Barredo decided to attack the break.
By 28 km to go the break was caught with the exception of Barredo, who had a 40-second lead.
Geox had been pushing the pace for most of the stage, to keep Sky’s Chris Froome from attacking; now Leopard Trek came to the front, intent on setting up Bennati for a sprint finish.
At the 20-kilometer banner, Chris Froome set off sprinting; race leader Juan Jose Cobo and Geox teammate Carlos Sastre immediately covered the move. It turns out the intermediaste sprint point6 had been moved during the race, and Froome had not been informed. Froome hoped to steal a few bonus seconds, but went too soon.
Carlos Sastre pushed on past Froome and was well ahead at the real sprint point, leaving nothing for Froome.
Sastre caught Barredo seven km from the finish; he himself was caught at three km, but it didn’t matter; he had wiped out the bonus points and gotten Cobo inside the three-km line, where a crash or mechanical failure wouldn’t cost Cobo any time.
Leopard Trek controlled the rest of the stage, delivering Bennati to the line for the easy win.
The 2011 Vuelta a España is all over except the final sprint. Juan Jose Cobo, who had considered retiring early in the season, is all but assured his first grand Tour win.
Geox, a new Spanish team formed out of the old Saunier-Duval and Footon-Servetto squads, showed perfect teamwork and tactics to keep Cobo protected.
The big-named teams—Liquigas, Leopard Trek, Saxo Bank—were out of the race halfway through. Sky’s Chris Froome and Bradley Wiggins made a fight of it, but in the end the team didn’t have the legs.
Juan Jose Cobo will wear red into Madrid because he and his team earned it.
|
2011 Vuelta a España Stage 20 |
|
General Classification after Stage 20 |
||||||
|
1 |
Daniele Bennati |
Leopard Trek |
4:39:20 |
1 |
Juan Jose Cobo |
Geox |
82:38:32 |
|
|
2 |
Enrico Gasparotto |
Astana |
0:00:01 |
2 |
Christopher Froome |
Sky |
0:00:13 |
|
|
3 |
Damiano Caruso |
Liquigas |
0:00:01 |
3 |
Bradley Wiggins |
Sky |
0:01:39 |
|
|
4 |
Sep Vanmarcke |
Garmin-Cervelo |
0:00:01 |
4 |
Bauke Mollema |
Rabobank |
0:02:03 |
|
|
5 |
Koen De Kort |
Skil Shimano |
0:00:01 |
5 |
Denis Menchov |
Geox |
0:03:48 |
|
|
6 |
Manuele Mori |
Lampre |
0:00:01 |
6 |
Maxime Monfort |
Leopard Trek |
0:04:13 |
|
|
7 |
Davide Malacarne |
Quickstep |
0:00:01 |
7 |
Vincenzo Nibali |
Liquigas |
0:04:31 |
|
|
8 |
Kristof Vandewalle |
Quickstep |
0:00:01 |
8 |
Jurgen Van Den Broeck |
Omega Pharma-Lotto |
0:04:45 |
|
|
9 |
Bauke Mollema |
Rabobank |
0:00:01 |
9 |
Daniel Moreno |
Katusha |
0:05:20 |
|
|
10 |
Eros Capecchi |
Liquigas |
0:00:01 |
10 |
Mikel Nieve |
Euskaltel-Euskadi |
0:05:33 |
|
