Denys Kostyuk

August 25, 2012

Vuelta Remains in Les Cuspides Since Stage 4

When a sailing ship hits the duldroms and the winds cease, the crew grows restless and starts doing ridiculous things like swabbing the deck. The Vuelta a España has gone three stages without a Point d’Appui, an even number of riders coming home each day. It got so bad that after Stage 7, the Vuelta’s website showed 194 riders finishing the stage but 196 still in contention for the general classification.

Suffice to say we don’t know how that works except that either there are two tandem bicycles out there or the Vuelta has entered its own period of blah.

Les Cuspides for the last few stages have been:

  • Stage 5 – Denys Kostyuk of Lampre-ISD and Zdenek Stybar of Omega Pharma-Quickstep.
  • Stage 6 – Bruno Pires of Saxo Bank-Tinkoff Bank and Assan Bazayev of Astana Pro Team.
  • Stage 7 – Pablo Lastras Garcia of Movistar Team and Rafael Valls Ferri of Vacansoleil-Dcm Pro Cycling Team.

Whether we find a new fulcrum on the first really tough mountain finish is yet to be seen. Maybe it will shake up the scorekeepers enough to get the number of riders correct.

August 22, 2012

Katusha Riders Gain the Cusp after Stage 4 of the Vuelta

After the abandonment by David Boucher, the field of the Vuelta was left with 196 riders and no Point d’Appui. After the fourth stage, Pavel Brutt of Katusha and Denys Kostyuk of Lampre, finished as Les Cuspides in the general classification. They finished more than 15 minutes behind the leader, Joaquim Rodriguez, also of Katusha.

Brutt was joined by another Katusha rider, Gatis Smukulis, as Les Cuspides for the stage.

A crash with about 30 kilometers to go threw the race into disorder. Philippe Gilbert, who held the Point d’Appui after Stage 3, fell nearly 40 places on the day. Unsurprisingly though, Markel Irizar, who won the Point d’Appui in the 2011 Tour de France as well as one stage in the 2011 Vuelta, has managed to stay within six places of the fulcrum.

The new Lanterne Rouge of the Vuelta is Martijn Maaskant of Garmin-Sharp. He’s more than 39 minutes behind the leader.