2012 Vuelta a España - Tour of Spain

Around 40 degrees C in Pamplona, TTT will be hard

Garmin looking very fast, Caja Rural dropping one within 10 mins, OG's Sulzberger looking to do the same soon

Fuck. Garmin crash

just realised it was on eurosport..sky looking quick

bola del mundo penultimate stage - that climb looks painful!

^ perhaps they were looking quick rather than going quick!

they were too quick on that roundabout for sure

I had only seen Caja Rural before that ;-)

surprised that Moviestar took the honours. After Sky missed I think Rabobank thought they had it

I guess it's just the organisation doing it the Spanish way ;)

https://twitter.com/koendekort/status/237125290504118272/photo/1

I thought Swifty had that, may have jumped just too early. The OGE rider, Meyer was it? was not happy at all.

Of all the Tours, the Vuelta has the worse coverage in terms of pure filming but then it isn't easy, look how badly they fucked up the Olympic road race

It was Allan Davis. Getting second, who'd thunk it?

Blimey this stage is sounding mental, Froome's going to get worked over by the Spanish riders.

*logs on to ES player

photo finish? On a mountain finish stage???????

description sounds like it was a cracker. 3 days in and a group of 4 people at a finish. Brilliant. I hope froome dog is OK, sounds like he was struggling the most. Contador sounds like he is in fearsome form.

watched the last 5k.

contador was breaking away real hard.
froome worked his ass off to stay with them.

good finish.

Valverde and Contador duking it out - makes you proud to be a cycling fan doesn't it?

:/

Great end to the stage today. I particularly enjoyed the commentry; contador attacking froome "he's.... trying to kill him!"

Some epic 'sit down and spin like fuck' kept froome in it though.

Great stage - think Froome was keeping the Froominator in its cage today, waiting to unleash when the real hills come up.

Contador was playing games woth him, but got the impression that Froome had his plan and that was what he was going to stick ti

Great to see such hard racing already.

I still think time bonuses are a PITA. I suspect Rodriguez would agree!

I think time bonuses are ace.

Froome looked comfortable just spinning up to me. I know it's boring, but does anyone think Contador is riding clean? Amusing seeing him throw down the attacks then find that the bunch were still with him. Got to admire the aggression nonetheless.

I'm assuming suspension of disbelief for the duration of the Vuelta.

I've always really liked Contador's riding, but he's a doper. He's probably using whatever Vinokurov's used to such good effect this year.

Guts and determination?

He's out the saddle for 60 seconds or something gritting his teeth not drilling it for 5 mins whilst breathing through his nose.

Looks like the Spanish are going to do to Froome what the Italians tried to do Hesjedal. He looked controlled really, like they were on elastic: the three got away, and Froome got them back. Froome looks to have two very strong back ups in Henao and Uran.