Sagan wins sixth stage as Chavanel retains overall jersey in Vuelta A Espana 2011
Liquigas-Cannondale team’s Peter Sagan used his descending skill in the sixth stage of Vuelta a Espana 2011 on Thursday, August 25. Sylvain Chavanel maintained his overall leader’s jersey.
The race started in Ubeda and ended in Cordoba. The 21-year-old Slovak professional cyclists took the total of 4 hours, 38 minutes and 22 seconds to cover the distance of 185.7 kilometres.
His team-mate Vincenzo Nibali was angry that Sagan takes victory and blocked him from taking time bonus in the stage but Sagan stopped Movistar team’s Pablo Lastras to take victory and save his team.
After winning the stage, Sagan told the media, “We did a great job as a team. It wasn’t our tactic (for the stage) but fortunately it came off, It would have been better if Vincenzo (Nibali) had won but it was better that a Liquigas-Cannondale rider won
rather than Lastras.”
He further added, "it wasn't very tactical... it would have been better if Vincenzo had won, but it was a Liquigas rider in the end."
After the few kilometres to go, Matti Breschel of Rabobank team faced a heavy crash, with multiple cuts and two broken bones in a hand so he abandon the race. With 60 kilometres to go, several attacks came in to the stage while Chavanel and Rodriguez managed
to open short-lived breaks.
With 130 kilometres is remaining the group of four cyclists managed to stick to the breakaway including, Martin Kohler (BMC), Adrian Palomares (Andalucia), Aleksejs Saramotins (Cofidis) and Yukihiro Doi (Skil-Shimano). All of them gained a lead of eight
minutes in the final 25 kilometres.
David Moncoutie of Cofidis launched an attacked on the climb ahead of Tony Martin while both of them joined by Kevin Seeldraeyers and David de la Fuente on the rolling plateau. Liquigas increased his pace but was soon caught and passed by the leader although
Lastras showed his good effort and held his pace.
In the final kilometres, Nibali gained 20 bonus seconds but he did not have strength to beat Lastras so Peter take matters into his hand and showed his good sprinting ability to take stage victory ahead of the other cyclists.
His team-mate Valerio Agnoli was in third place with the same timing of sprinter ahead of Nibali and Capecchi. The stage winner Chavanel was in tenth place in the stage but retained his overall standing with the timing of 22 hours, 41 minutes and 13 seconds.
Fernandez was runner-up with 15 seconds and Nibali was in third place with 16 seconds down to Sylvain.
The next stage will run in Almadén and finished in Talavera de la Reina and all the cyclists will cover the distance of 185 kilometres.
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