Talented Sky rider adds another win to his palmares
Team Sky’s Ben Swift notched up his third victory of the season today in the 167.7 kilometer final stage of the Vuelta a Castilla y León today, beating Spaniard’s Fransico Ventoso (Movistar) and Ruben Perez (Euskaltel-Euskadi) into second and third place respectively. Xavier Tondo finished with the peloton to secure the race’s overall victory to reap the rewards of his impressive time trial performance yesterday.
The 109 rider peloton set off under sunny skies in Madrigal de las Altas Torres on what was the final day of the 2011 Vuelta a Castilla y León. Rabobank’s Bauke Mollema trailed overall leader Tondo by 9 seconds, meaning the Dutch squad would have to be aggressive to unseat the Movistar leader.
Wind saw early attacks fail, but combined efforts from Euskatel-Euskadi, Saxo Bank-Sungard and Rabbobank managed to split the peloton in two. After twenty kilometers of racing the front group was 50 riders strong, but the main chasers put the effort to see most of the race come back together six kilometers later. Some still dangled off the back with close to 30 seconds of work left to reach the main peloton.
At the 31 kilometer mark a group of five were allowed to take their chances, it included Saxo Bank-Sungard’s Richie Porte, Chris Froome (Team Sky), Jonathan Hivert (Saur Sojasun), Giampaolo Cheula (GEOX-TMC) and Giovanni Baez (UNE-EPM). Egoitz Garcia (Caja Rural) was the next to bridge across, with Federic Canuti (Colnago-CSF Inox), Rubén Perez (Euskatel-Euskadi) and Sergio Sousa (Barbot-Efapel) making it nine-strong at the 39 kilometer mark with a slight advantage over the peloton.
Ten kilometers later the escape had push their advantage out to 40 seconds, with the Andalusia Caja Granada and Movistar teams driving the chase behind. The gap continued to come down until they were caught at kilometer 62.
For the next 25 kilometers nobody could break free, but after a crash followed by a stiff pace another group of nine forced a gap. The move again saw an attentive Sergio Sousa (Barbot – Efapel), who had the company of Volodymir Gustav (Saxo Bank-Sungard), Alex Dowsett (Team Sky), Matthias Brandle (GEOX-TMC), José Alberto Benitez (Caja Granada Andalusia), Fabricio Ferrari (Caja Rural), Victor Hugo Pena (Colombia’s Passion), Yannick Talabardon (Saur Sojasun) and Paolo Locatelli (Colnago – CSF Inox). The leaders quickly built up a 2 minute lead, that reached a maximum advantage of 3 minutes and 16 minutes with 54 kilometers left to race.
Behind, the Movistar, Rabobank and Burgos 2016 teams worked hard to bring down the gap. In 10 kilometers the chasers had eaten away a third of the escape’s advantage. With 20 kilometers remaining the gap to the leaders was reduced to under a minute, and it was down to less than 30 seconds 14 kilometers from the finish.
The escape dangled off the front of the peloton as the chasers hurtled towards the finish line in Medina del Campo. Just 2 kilometers from the line the break was caught, and the sprinters began to sense a chance at victory. It was Team Sky who played their cards right, with Russell Downing launching Swift perfectly to easily take the stage win.