Stage 10 of the 39th Vuelta al Táchira en Bicicleta, covering 134.3 km. between San Cristóbal and the town of Pregonero, and featuring four Intermediate Sprints and three KOM primes, got off to a timely start at 09h30 in the morning local time. Today’s undulating route should provide anyone aiming at toppling overall leader José Rujano (Selle Italia-Colombia) of Venezuela with enough opportunities to go on the attack. Although the South American team, coached by Italian Gianni Savio, showed throughout the past stages that to ride away from their wheels is no easy task at all, especially if you are an overall contender. And even more if you ride for archrival Lotería del Táchira.
The first ones to experience Selle Italia’s chasing skills on Monday were Venezuelan Tony Linares, Colombian Alvario Lozano (riding with the Gobernación del Zulia-Alcaldia de Cabimas B outfit) and Cuban Lizardo Benitez, all three guys making a first attempt barely half a dozen minutes into the race, all three guys brought back soon. A few minutes later, with the pack averaging about 46 km/h, Selle Italia took some matters into their own hands and, in order to anticipate any attack from their rivals, forced the pace, such that a leading group of some 25 riders formed, but - surprise, surprise - with no Lotería del Táchira rider among them! The 25-strong break was short-lived, as the loteros rode hard to bring them back, but once again Selle Italia-Colombia gave a tactical lesson to their rivals, taken aback by their move, and forced to spend energies in a early chase.
With the pack regrouped again, Miguel Chacón (Alc. Los Guayos-IUGC) won the first meta volante (km. 20.7) from Guatemala’s Abel Jochola and Colombia’s Lozano, all three claiming some bonus time. The next rider on the attack was Lozano’s team-mate Victor Becerra, showing that the Alcaldia de Cabimas team were aimed at making their mark on the stage. Becerra was joined by other Venezuelans: Alirio Contreras (Gob. Trujillo-Café Flor De Patria) Tommy Alcedo (Kino Táchira) and Douglas Pérez (Triple Gordo-Gob. Lara A).
Pérez was soon caught, whereas the three other escapees - none of which a threat to the leader, as the “best” placed in the GC, Becerra, was trailing more than eight minutes behind Rujano in the overall standings - got to stay clear and extended the gap to almost a minute. Victor Becerra captured the second sprint of the day (Alto de Santo Domingo, Km. 36.5) ahead of Contreras and Alcedo.
As the peloton hit the first climb, another Kino Táchira rider escaped the field: Freddy Vargas, not new to such moves, built up a lead of about 150 meters over the main bunch, that reacted and brought him back anyway, besides slightly cutting the gap to the leading trio with one hour of racing over. But the Selle Italia-led peloton had no intention to embark on a early chase of the three men, such that a few minutes later, around the km. mark 55, the lead was still hovering around sixty seconds.
Contreras attacked his breakaway mates before the third intermediate sprint (km. 59.6), but they didn’t let him go. Victor Becerra won this sprint too, while Raúl Saavedra and Manuel Medina, who just rode way from the peloton and bridged the gap the leader, scored a great 1-2-3 for Gobernación del Zulia-Alcaldia de Cabimas. With the gap reduced to 15 seconds, the bunch was coming anyway.
The break was nullified right after the sprint, and Gobernación del Zulia got out of the limelight since. But as the peloton hit the slopes of Alto del Paradero, many, many riders were getting dropped off with clockwork regularity, such that just about 25-30 of them remained at the front. A protagonist of an early break in yesterday’s hectic stage over the San Cristóbal circuit, lotero Aldrin Salamanca gave a further display of his combative attitude and went on solo attack, building a small gap over the rest of the front group, where Freddy González and José Rujano were setting the pace. And with pace setters like these, Salamanca couldn’t go far. After playing cat and mouse with him for a few minutes, the peloton, including all main contenders but getting smaller as the climb progressed. (such that at some point Rujano had just two team-mates with him: Freddy and Mesa) chased Salamanca down.
One lotero brought back, another on the attack: around the km. 75 mark, as the bunch was approaching the last section of El Paradero, it was César Salazar’s turn to try for a solo escape, and quickly gain about 200 metres over the small bunch containing close to all GC contenders, from Rujano and Freddy to Maya, Medina, Delgado and José Chacón, though neither Colombia’s Eduardo Guerrero (he had a bad day) nor U23 classification runner-up Juan Murillo were there. After two hours of riding César Salazar, trailing ten minutes down to Rujano in the GC, but leading the next bunch by more than a minute in the stage, won the first KOM Prime.
Salazar took some risks in the following descent, and his “recklessness” seemingly paid off, as the gap increased to almost one and a half minutes in the following kilometres. After winning the fourth and last Intermediate Sprint at La Fundación with 52k to go, the man tackled the second ascent. But the most significant things were happening behind him: as soon as the chasing pack hit the climb, the third lotero to test Freddy’s and Rujano’s legs was Carlos Maya, who launched a wicked attack, that only González countered immediately. Also Rujano and the rest had to force the pace too, such that a few riders (including Marlon Pérez and Rodolfo Camacho) got dropped. Vásquez lost contact too, but for the different reasons: he just had a flat at the wrong time. The man eventually succeeded in regaining contact with the Rujano bunch, but had to ride hard and spent a lot of energies.
On the way to the second mountain prime of the stage, coming with less than 27k to go, both Maya and González got reeled in, whereas Salazar still was on a solo lead. But Freddy kept doing a helluva job, setting a high pace at the front of the peloton. It‘s impressive - and definitely an unusual thing - to have a rider sitting in second place in the GC, and just a minute away from the yellow jersey - nevertheless working as domestique for his team leader in such a fashion.
As the bunch approached the top of the ascent, more riders, including Aldrin Salamanca, got dropped. Three hours into the race, Salazar took the prime, with Rujano coming in second at 01’10” and Raúl Gomez third ahead of Freddy and Maya. A couple kilometres later Manuel Medina punctured, but regained the peloton very quickly, even if he had no team-mates
around to assist.
On the slopes leading to the top of Alto de Mata a Caña (third and final KOM prime), the puntero (leader) of the stage extended his gap to the “chasers” to more than two minutes. At this point of the stage, with just about 20k to go and Selle Italia’s González and Rujano seemingly more interested in controlling Maya and Vásquez than reeling him, and not pushing hard at all (as the fact riders like Salamanca, Guevara and Camacho could regain the peloton proved), few would bet against Salazar. The solo escapee comfortably took the last KOM prime with 13k to go, with Rujano powering to second place ahead of Noel Vásquez and the other usual suspects (Gómez Maya etc.).
The pack picked up the speed on the last part of the ascent (as the fact riders like Salamanca and Camacho were dropped again proved) and cut the gap down to about 01’20”, but on the way into the finishing line at Pregonero. Lotería’s Salazar could keep a winning margin of fifty-three seconds and, even if he didn’t raise his arms in triumph when crossing the line, give his own team, unable to take any stage throughout the first week, a second straight win on the home soil of Estado Táchira.
CÈSAR SALAZAR WAS THE WINNER!!. Carlos Maya attacked in the very last metres of the ride and took the runner-up place, as well as a few seconds out of Rujano, who filled the remaining top 3 spot, González (fourth in the stage) and the others. Raúl Saavedra and Aldrin Salamanca lost more than 01’30” (but in spite of this, the Colombian moved up into ninth overall) while on the losers’ side of the matter, Rodolfo Camacho and previous stage winner Manuel Medina lost more than two an half minutes and dropped to 12th and 11th respectively. Colombia’s Eduardo Guerrero slipped further behind in the GC, while stage winner César Salazar, currently 09’11” down in the GC, couldn’t get into the Top 10 places.
If the San Cristóbal-based team could celebrate another stage success, Selle Italia-Colombia had enough reasons to be happy too, as Rujano comfortably maintained his lead in the Overall Standings and the KOM Classification, in both cases ahead of team-mate Freddy González. Who, at his turn, still tops the Points Rankings. With two riders in the top places of today’s stage, Lotería del Táchira increased their lead in the Teams Ranking, while the same Rujano is more leader than ever in the Young Riders Classification.
After so much uphill riding, tomorrow's stage should bring the fastest wheels (still in the race) into limelight. Stage 11 covers 163.7 km. between
Fundación and San Rafael del Piñar, with a "C" Category mountain prime (El Paradero) after seven kilometres, followd by a long descent, then a flat course over more than 100 kms.
