yes, stage nine looks like another potential kom breakaway day and another chance for
a few more contenders for the overall to drop out. sure that many would pick tommy d
and cadel as two of the likely candidates for big time loss. silence-lotto did put on
a good show today though shepherding evans. not sure how much sanchez's
crash will affect him on another long day in the mountains. valverde is due for his
scheduled "bad day" in the mountains but caisse (and j. rodriquez) looked today to be
fully capable of supporting the green bullet into the last week of the vuelta. nice to see
cunego finally get a mountain stage win after many attempts the last couple of years.
very impressed by gesink's turn of speed the last two kilometers but does he have
enough support (and stamina) to go the distance as a contender? methinks he needs
one more (next) year and he'll be ready to contend in 2011. he's in the same boat as
both schlecks though; he'll have to improve on his tt (to be fair, andy schleck has shown
signs of improvement there but may be resigned in the forseeable near future to being
number two behind contador).

if columbia managed to get contador, their setup would be similar to deutche telekom/
t-mobile during the ullrich/kloden/kessler/zabel years; a lot of talented & capable riders.
we all know how that turned out. they should have "podiumed" in every race they
rode in but frequently seemed unsure whom exactly to ride for or employed
questionable tactics. who knows how many races they would have won if not splitting
time between riding for ullrich and zabel? stapleton seems to have a pretty good
handle on things now and if anyone could still achieve daily results and still have a shot
at the whole enchilada, it's him. i think the bigger question is why would columbia
bother with contador (or similar)? with the ability to seriously contend in every one-day,
classic or grand tour stage with their stable, mgmt. can throw a bone to nearly
every rider on the squad several times a year to keep them all happy & unified.
-grabsch, hincapie, martin & pinotti for tt's & prologues,
-hincapie, albasini, eisel, lovkvist, pinotti, hagen, siutsou & cavendish for one-days,
rolling or small mountain stages & classics
-kirchen, monfort & martin for the big mountains
-kirchen & martin for the gt's
-cavendish, greipel, hansen & henderson for the sprints
not too shabby! obviously changes for 2010 such as hincapie's departure but still...