[Closed] La Vuelta stage 9 - Cistierna / Oviedo. Alto del Naranco

Still to catch up on yesterdays stage but I gather it saw a strong attack from Quintana to put him into red...

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A battered and bruised Contador gain time on Froome...

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And some attacking by Froome but maybe too early and a climb that wasn't quite right for him. Did say at the start he was expecting to come good later on so will be interesting to see how that pans out...

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Oh and some Katusha guy won (I really haven't read or seen much of the stage!)

On to today's stage...

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Looks tough with a cat 2 summit finish. This sourced from [url= http://inrng.com/2016/08/vuelta-stage-9-preview-alto-de-naranco/ ]inrng[/url]...

The Route: 164km and 2,685m of vertical gain as the race heads north-west towards Oviedo. A collection of third category climbs line the finish of which the Alto de la Manzaneda is the hardest, 3.6km at 6.9% while the previous climbs are all in the order of 3-4%.

The Finish: the Alto del Naranco is listed at 5.7km at 6.1% but once you discount the soft first two kilometres it kicks up to 8% at times before easing to 6% for the final kilometre, an intense effort.

The Contenders: a breakaway? Few teams seem to have the ability to control the race and today’s route is ideal for a breakaway. Picking a winner here is a bit of a lottery but the climbing and especially the final climb reward lighter riders and specialist climbers. Three picks:

Astana’s Luis Leon Sanchez is the versatile pick because he’s proving strong and now that the team have lost their leader Lopez it’s up to the others to help hunt down a stage. Sanchez has won more downhill finishes but is riding well. If not then Andrey Zeits is looking strong.

Lotto-Soudal’s Bart de Clerq is in form and hunting for a stage now his chances of a top-10 overall have vanished. He’s solid on shorter finishes like today.

For an outside pick there’s Romain Sicard, the Basque rider with Direct Energie was an amateur when he won the pro Subida al Naranco race, the “Climb of the Naranco” so perhaps he’s been waiting for this stage for old time’s sake?

I'd expect the usual breakaway and GC scrap scenario. Though they may want to keep their powder dry as here's a sneak peek at Monday's profile...

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