Taaramae Wins Vuelta a España Stage Fourteen; Wiggins and Froome Solidify Podium Position

Rein Taarramae of Cofidis won Stage 14 of the 2011 Vuelta a España after attacking a large breakaway on the Cat 1 Puerto de San Lorenzo and holding on up the Hors Categorie climb to the finish at La Farrapona Lagos de Somiedo.

“I feel incredible—it was already 3 years ago I had some wins. I just needed one victory for my team. We won a big victory—it’s happening today and I’m really happy ,” the exuberant Estonian told Eurosport.com.

“I am happy it is happening today because this Vuelta a España has been really hard for me. I have two days really sick, but I am finally recovered— I was never thinking about abandoning.

Here in the Vuelta [Cofidis] has showed we are a big team, we fight every day with every rider. Before today it had been fourteen stages and every stage we have had someone on the front fighting for the victory.”

Race leader Bradley Wiggins and Sky teammate Chris Froome made impressive efforts on the final climb, opening some gaps over their General Classification competition. The bottom three of the top five coming into the race all lost time; Rabobank’s Bauke Mollema moved from seventh to third by maintaining his 36-second deficit.

The expected hail of attacks on the final climb didn’t come as Sky’s Bradley Wiggins and Chris Froome set such a high pace that most of the GC contenders fell off the back. The final climb, despite having some ramps up to 13 percent, was not extremely steep on average, so the pure climbers fell while the power climbers did well.

The first successful break of 19 riders established itself in the first kilometer, led by HTC’s Leigh Howard.

This group— Guilluame Bonnafond (AG2R,) Luis Leon Sanchez (Rabobank,) Jonas Aaen Jörgensen (Saxo Bank,) Lloyd Mondory ( AG2R,) Sep Vanmarcke (Garmin-Cervelo,) Alberto Benitez (Andalucia-Caja Granada,) Karsen Kroon (BMC,) Yohan Bagot (Cofidis,) Rein Taaramae (Cofidis,) Inaki Isasi (Euskaltel,) Jorge Azanza (Euskaltel,) David De La Fuente (Geox,) Leigh Howard (HTC-Highroad,) Aliaksandr Kuschynski (Katusha,) Eduard Vorganov (Katusha,) Francesco Bellotti (Liquigas,) and Daniele Righi (Lampre)—got a lead of over seven minutes but had only half that by the approach to the second climb of the day, the Cat 1 Puerto de San Lorenzo.

Crashes on the tricky descent down the Puerto de la Ventana claimed a few riders including BMC’s Karsten Kroon, who had to withdraw. Halfway up San Lorenzo, Taaramae made his move, with David de la Fuente of Geox.

Fabian Cancellara was leading the peloton at this point, and the big leopard trek powerhouse didn’t react when Katusha’s Daniele Moreno attacked two-thirds of the way up the climb. His teammate Joaquin Rodriguez feinted an attack, but didn’t insist.

When the grade hit twelve percent, Rodriguez, along with Rabobank’s Bayuke Mollema and Juan Jose Cobo and Denis Mencov of Geox, pressed a head of the peloton. Vincenzo Nibali joined them, making this a serious threat to Brad Wiggins, who was slow to respond.

Eventually Wiggins picked up his pace and caught the attacking group, but he didn’t look happy about it. The race leader caught up just before the crest, and everyone expected Nibali, an excellent descender, to press the pace but instead, the attacking group sat up.

Up the road, Moreno had hooked up with stragglers from the big escape; he formed a group of seven riders— his teammate Vorganov, Bruseghin of Movistar, Righi of Lampre, Mondory and Bonnafond of AG2R and Inaki Isasi of Euskaltel Euskadi. Bruseghin did all the pacemaking, powering up the gentle slopes approaching the final climb.

This group got halfway between the peloton and the leading pair when Euskaltel’s Gorka Verdugo went to the head of the peloton and turned the pace way up.

As the road tilted up, the gap dropped and do did the riders; Moreno’s group shrank and so did the red jersey group. With eight kilometers to go the race leader was 30 seconds behind Moreno’s group; at six km, that group was caught.

At five km Euskatel’s Amet Txurruka attacked. 1500 meters later Moreno made another attempt, along with Geox rider Juan Jose Cobo. This pair passed Txurruka; soon Cobo passed Moreno.

With 2.5 km left to climb, Vincenzo Nibali and Joaquin Rodriguez lost touch with the red jersey group. With 2 km left, Bradley Wiggins Moved to the front and really pushed the pace, dropping more riders, including eventually, Daniele Moreno. Chris Froome moved back the the front, as Wiggins began to look hurt, but neither eased the pace.

Up front, David de la Fuente dropped back to meet teammate Juan Jose Cobo. De la Fuente pulled Cobo to the line and into fourth in GC.

Taaramae got the win by 25 secfonds over Cobo, with de la Fuente four seconds back and Vacansoleil’s Wout Poel pushing ahead at the end to take fourth.

While the predicted attacks didn’t come, the predicted GC shakeup did: Wiggins and Froome kept their top two slots, but Fredrik Kessiakoff dropped from third to sixth, losing 1:14. Jakob Fuglsang dropped from fourth to fifth, losing 39 seconds, and defending champion Vincenzo Nibali dropped to seventh and lost 1:01.

Bauke Mollema and Juan Jose Cobo were the big movers, Cobo from eighth to fourth and Mollema from seventh to third, only these two, plus Fuglsang, are within a minute of the race leader.

Daniele Moreno and Haimar Zubeldia dropped out of the top ten.

Stage Fifteen will be even harder than Stage Fourteen. With the Cat 2 Alto de Tenebrado, the Cat 1 Alto del Cordal and a mountaintop finish on the Hors Categorie Alto de L’ Angliru, the last 6.5 meters of which ascend at a 13 percent grade.

The stage is short, only 142 km, but after the two prior stages, it will be long enough to hurt; also with a rest day following, riders have no reason not to go all out on this stage.

Also, there aren’t a lot of really tough stages after Stage Fifteen. Riders will need to gain every second they can here. Anyone who hopes to unseat Bradley Wiggins will need to do it Sunday.

 

2011 Vuelta a España Stage 14					General Classification after Stage 14
1	Rein Taaramae	Cofidis	4:39:01		1	Bradley Wiggins	Sky	55:54:45
2	Juan Jose Cobo	Geox	0:00:25		2	Christopher Froome	Sky	0:00:07
3	David De La Fuente	Geox	0:00:29		3	Bauke Mollema	Rabobank	0:00:36
4	Wout Poels	Vacansoleil	0:00:40		4	Juan Jose Cobo	Geox	0:00:55
5	Bradley Wiggins	Sky	0:00:45		5	Jakob Fuglsang	Leopard Trek	0:00:58
6	Christopher Froome	Sky	0:00:45		6	Fredrik Kessiakoff	Astana	0:01:23
7	Bauke Mollema	Rabobank	0:00:45		7	Vincenzo Nibali	Liquigas	0:01:25
8	Denis Menchov	Geox	0:00:45		8	Maxime Monfort	Leopard Trek	0:01:37
9	Mikel Nieve	Euskaltel-Euskadi	0:00:55		9	Jurgen Van Den Broeck	Omega Pharma-Lotto	0:02:16
10	Jurgen Van Den Broeck	Omega Pharma-Lotto	0:01:00		10	Daniel Moreno	Katusha	0:02:24