procycling

A new Vuelta started this week-end with the withdrawal of its leader Pogatchar. A very hilly week awaits the riders.

Standings after 9 stages

General time classification

There is a gap after rider #8.

1. Enric Mas 🇪🇸 Movistar
2. Primoj Roglitch 🇸🇮 Bora @ 1′18″
3. Felix Gall 🇦🇹 Decathlon @ 1′39″
4. Oscar Onley 🇬🇧 Ineos @ 2′20″
5. Richard Carapaz 🇪🇨 EF @ 3′26″
6. Matias Skjelmose 🇩🇰 Lidl-Trek @ 3′55″
7. Sepp Kuss 🇺🇸 Visma @ 4′09″
8. Harold Tejada 🇨🇴 Astana @ 4′39″
9. Gregor Mühlberger 🇦🇹 Decathlon @ 7′33″

Points

Is Visma the only team going for it?

1. Wout Van Aert 🇧🇪 Visma: 124 pts
2. Matthew Brennan 🇬🇧 Visma: 67
3. Alessandro Romele 🇮🇹 Astana: 59
4. Mads Pedersen 🇩🇰 Lidl-Trek: 58
5. Ethan Hayter 🇬🇧 Soudal-QS: 57
6. Christophe Laporte 🇫🇷 Visma: 52

Mountain

Buitrago went for it on Sunday.

1. Santiago Buitrago 🇨🇴 Bahrain: 29 pts
2. Enric Mas 🇪🇸 Movistar: 24
3. Andreas Leknessund 🇳🇴 Uno-X: 19
4. Wout Van Aert 🇧🇪 Visma: 16
5. Lorenzo Fortunato 🇮🇹 Astana: 13

Stage 10, Tuesday 1

185 km, D+ 2700m

No big climbs, no steep climbs, but a number of them again. The finish may be decided by small hump 5 km from the line, and the survival over the following 4 km long uphill false-flat that brings the riders to the line. Who will win, a puncher? a false-flat sprinter? a breakaway?

Stage 11, Wednesday 2

151 km, D+ 1400m

Contrarily to the previous day, today the elevation is concentrated in one main climb. Its slope isn't steep and there are still 30 km to go after its summit. We can note that the first 15 km are designed to create a breakaway. But the whole profile shouldn't be very hard to control.

Stage 12, Thursday 3

167 km, D+ 4500m

Parts of this stage look similar to the one won by Leknessund on the 1^st^ week. However there are a few more serious slopes here, in the beginning of the Velefique Pass and then in the beginning of the Calar observatory's climb . Between 2 easier stages, the GC leaders will certainly battle again here. Will it be for stage victory too, or simply far behind a breakaway?

Stage 13, Friday 4

193 km, D+ 3300m

Once again, a stage with a climb at a distance from the line, 40 km here, before a flat finish. The originality is that first half of the stage is however pretty hard. If it were still to finish in some sort of a sprint, the last half-mile is uphill.

Stage 14, Saturday 5

155 km, D+ 4100m

Back to a (short) mountain stage with a finish on top. There is no other difficult climb before that, but there is no flat at all, just uphill and downhill false-flats everywhere, with a couple of medium smooth climbs and a few little walls here and there.

Stage 15, Sunday 6

190 km, D+ 3300m

To finish the week, we alternate again with another hilly stage. A bit of flat at the start, a bit of flat at the end in Cordoba, and 150 of hills in between.