Did you guys check out today’s stage? Heras finally showed that he could drop the hammer and did on that final climb. He really put the hurt on Landis today and Floyd lost the Golden Jersey. Heras put over 3 minutes on Floyd in the final climb and some serious time into Perez, Mancebo, and Valverde.
I myself would prefer to see Floyd win, but I’m all for a great race and today’s stage was certianly that. It’s to bad that OLN isn’t showing the race. Just in case-you can follow the action via cyclingnews or velonews.
No unfortunately not. There was a whole uproar about this a couple months back along with a petition sent to the head of OLN (they have the US rights). The head of the network said something in effect that it wasn’t in their plans this year to televise the Vuelta live or replayed. It came down to the expense and the fact that the ratings didn’t justify it. They will be showing a recap (WOW) next month.
Didn’t see the race today, so I don’t know the details, but…
Do you find it odd that Beltran finished ahead of Landis by over a minute or so? As Landis held the Golden Jersey and actually had a (small) chance at holding on, it seems strange that Beltran wouldn’t drop back to help Floyd.
Does Postal think Beltran is stronger or are they just supporting Beltran because he will be with the team next year?
Yes, you can watch the Vuelta in the US through TVEI (TV ESPAÑOLA INTERNATIONAL). They’re available on some Satellite packages. Cyclingnews.com has made references to it. Jeff Jones’ once-a minute live updates on that site are very good and frequently amusing if you’re bored at work!
Interesting that you brought that up. I noticed that as well. Apparently on stage 10 Floyd(Correction:It was Tyler who yelled at Beltran) was yelling at Beltran to ride harder. In turn Tyler Hamiltion had words with USPS director Dirk Demol, angered that USPS wasn’t supporting Floyd enough.
From CyclingNews:
team director Johan Bruyneel told Cyclingnews, “Dirk told me after the stage what Tyler said to him and I was very surprised. I’m really not happy with these comments from Tyler because we all know that our team has been supporting Floyd one hundred percent at the Vuelta a España. Everybody, without exception. Tyler is out of line…sure he can have his opinion on anything, but he should keep it to himself.”
Bruyneel explained further that, “Floyd has told me and Dirk and the team how he’s been really satisfied about the support we’ve given him at the Vuelta; from the Team Time Trial and every other stage, especially after Stage 10 on Monday. We’ve been defending the race win with everything we have. We want to win the Vuelta and it’s disappointing to me that a rider of Tyler’s stature expresses himself this way… perhaps he should make sure his team is OK first.”
Statement edited out due to a correction in the quote.
Actually, SD, it was Hamilton who yelled at Beltran, and then had words with Dimol.
It seems that USPS knows that both Beltran and Landis have their hands full with the climbers, so they will both just try to individually hang as long as possible. In this way they are hoping that one will hang long enough to make up time on the TT stages, but it seems to be a longshot now.
Does anyone know why USPS didn’t bring Azevedo? It would seem that he would be an obvious choice for this race. Instead, he was at the tour of britain, which didn’t really showcase his climbing strength. Doesn’t really make sense to me.
"Apparently on stage 10 Floyd was yelling at Beltran to ride harder. "
Where on earth did you get this from? From the same Cyclingnews story you quoted:
“But on that steep, final ascent, Hamilton began yelling at USPS rider
Triki Beltran to ride harder, which astonished the Spanish rider, who
trying to maintain his tempo on the difficult climb.”
It was Hamilton yelling at Beltran. I have never heard or read any report that Landis was anything but extremely happy with the support the team was giving him.
This sucks. The Vuelta is shaping up to be the best race of the three grand tours(as usual) and it’s the one we can’t see. From what I’ve been able to tell from reading cyclingnews.com, it’s been a terrific race.