Australians prepare at Vuelta

afp.comFri 27 Aug 2010, 11am

Simon Gerrans will use this year's Vuelta to prepare for the upcoming Road World Championships in Australia. (Getty)

Share This

0 0

+ Comment

Nearly half the powerful Australian men's world road cycling championships team will hone their preparations at the Tour of Spain.

The third and final Grand Tour of the season starts in Spain on Sunday (AEST), with several leading riders eyeing their chances in the three-week race amid the absence of the world's top road racer Alberto Contador.

Australian world champion Cadel Evans, who finished third overall in the Vuelta last year, will skip the race as part of his revised 2010 racing schedule.

Evans is instead focussing on the world titles in Melbourne and Geelong on October 3.

But four of his team-mates in the nine-rider Australian men's elite team, named earlier this week, will use the Vuelta to work on their form leading up to the worlds.

Allan Davis (Astana), Simon Gerrans (Team Sky), Matt Goss (HTC-Columbia) and Stuart O'Grady (Saxo Bank) are confirmed starters.

Matt Wilson (Garmin-Transitions) and 23-year-old newcomer Johnnie Walker (Footon-Servetto) are the other Australians in the race.

Three-time Tour de France winner Contador is skipping his home Tour, which he won in 2008, after a hard-fought victory in France in July.

He joins two of his Spanish countrymen - last year's winner Alejandro Valverde, who is serving a suspension for doping, and Samuel Sanchez, who was injured in a crash in the final mountain stage of the Tour de France - on the absentee list.

The 2008 Tour de France winner Carlos Sastre also fancies his chances, even at age 35.

"I see a great opportunity to win this time," he told the Spanish sports newspaper Marca.

He named Menchov as the favourite, and mentioned Andy Schleck's brother Frank as a top contender.

But "without Contador I don't know what will happen, no team will control the race," said Sastre, who this month announced he will ditch his Cervelo team for Geox next season.

Menchov says he too is hungry for another title and sees the Schleck brothers of the Saxo Bank team as his biggest rivals.

"The course is very mountainous, but that's what I do well," he told Spanish sports daily AS.

"The important thing is that I'm motivated. I'm not tired mentally or physically, I'm fine, I'm going out with the intention of winning, but it will never be easy," said the 32-year-old Rabobank rider.

The second and third finishers in this year's Giro d'Italia, Spain's David Arroyo and Italy's Vicenzo Nibali, are also on the starting list.

Britain's sprint king Mark Cavendish will be making his Tour of Spain debut, hoping to extend his remarkable string of stage wins in major Tours that includes 15 victories in France over the past three years.

He leads an impressive line-up of sprinters that includes Spain's three-time World Road Race champion Oscar Freire, Italy's Alessandro Petacchi, winner of the Tour de France green jersey last month, and Norway's Thor Hushovd.

But the course, which includes six summit finishes in eight mountain stages, is expected to favour the climbers.

Many believe the event could be won or lost on the penultimate stage, a 168.8-kilometre course that ends atop the 2,250-metre Bola del Mundo in the Guadarrama mountain rang northwest of Madrid.

The 17th-stage individual time-trial could also be crucial.

The 65th edition of the Tour of Spain will also break new ground with the leader's jersey changing colour from the traditional gold to red and the first stage taking place at night.

The 21-stage event gets underway at 10pm (2000 GMT) on Saturday with a 16.5km team time-trial in the southern city of Seville and will finish in Madrid on September 19.

A total of 198 riders from 22 teams are due to compete.

But organisers this year controversially left out the US-based Radio Shack team, which includes riders such as Americans Levi Leipheimer and Chris Horner and veteran Spaniard Haimar Zubeldia.

Stages in the 2010 Tour of Spain, which starts in Seville on Sunday morning (AEST) and finishes in Madrid on September 19, covering a total distance of 3352.6 km:

Saturday, Aug 28 - stage 1 Seville, team time-trial, 13km.

Sunday, Aug 29 - stage 2, Alcala de Guadaira to Marbella, 173km

Monday, Aug 30 - stage 3, Marbella to Malaga, 156km

Tuesday, Aug 31 - stage 4, Malaga to Valdepenas de Jaen, 177km

Wednesday, Sept 1 - stage 5, Guadix to Lorca, 194km

Thursday, Sept 2 - stage 6, Caravaca de la Cruz to Murcia, 144km

Friday, Sept 3 - stage 7, Murcia to Orihuela, 170km

Saturday, Sept 4 - stage 8, Villena to Xorret del Cati, 188.8km

Sunday, Sept 5 - stage 9, Calpe to Alcoy, 187km

Monday, Sept 6 - rest day

Tuesday, Sept 7 - stage 10, Tarragona to Vilanova i la Geltru, 173.7km

Wednesday, Sept 8 - stage 11, Vilanova i la Geltru to Andorra (Pal), 208km)