If the closing climb had not been in the route, is goes without doubt the teams of the sprinters would have controlled the race. However, in this case it doesn’t make sense. As there’s is not a lot to gain for the GC-guys either we can expect the race to boil down to an attackers party.
The 2013 Vuelta a España brought the last finish to Peña Cabarga with Vasil Kiryienka barely surviving the closing climb. He hit the foot with a 2 minutes lead and at the top there was half a minute left.
Previous editions of the Vuelta saw Ángel López del Álamo (1979), Joaquim Rodriguez (2010) and Chris Froome (2011) climbing to slory. Yet, this year brings a somewhat unusual race to Peña Cabarga with a lot of flat before hitting the climb.
Favourites 11th stage Vuelta a España
*** Leopold König, Thomas De Gendt, Robert Gesink, George Bennett
** Louis Vervaeke, Alexandre Geniez, Darwin Atapuma, Kristijan Durasek
* Andrey Zeits, Omar Fraile, Luis Angel Mate, Davide Formolo, Pierre Rolland
Vuelta a España 2016 Stage 11: Route maps, height profiles, etc
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