Joaquim Rodriguez

August 28, 2012

Rast Slides into Point d’Appui After Vuelta Stage 10

Gregory Rast

Gregory Rast

Grégory Rast of Radioshack-Nissan has gotten ahold of the overall Point d’Appui in the Vuelta a España. John Gadret of AG2R abandoned the race before Stage 10 because of gastrointestinal problems, leaving 193 to come home on Stage 10.

Rast was the Swiss National Road Champion in 2002, 2004 and 2006, won the Tour de Luxembourg in 2007, was victor in the 2008 Grand Prix of Instanbul, and finished first with the RadioShack team during the team time trial of Stage 4 of the Tour de France in 2009. Since then, not so much. Until today. Now he holds his first Point d’Appui.

Rast is not only the Point d’Appui; he holds the median time of the Vuelta so far too. He finished 49 minutes and 3 seconds behind race leader Joaquim Rodriguez of Katusha and 49 minutes and six seconds ahead of Joost Van Leijen of Lotto Belisol.

On the stage, Johannes Fröhlinger of Argos-Shimano won the Point d’Appui.

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.