No doubt you know by now that the 2008 Vuelta a España ended on Sunday with it's native son, Alberto Contador (Astana), becoming only the 5th rider to win all three grand Tours. Contador came into this race as the heavy favorite, carrying all of the baggage that comes with being the marked man. Having sat out this year's Tour de France, he was fresh, feisty and ready to stamp his authority on the rest of the peloton. His team came packed with their big guns, ready to help their young team captain make even more history. The team included 2 other previous Tour de France podium finishers in German Andreas Klöden and American Levi Leipheimer. By far, they were the strongest team.

But Contador's win did not come easy. He narrowly beat his own teammate, Leipheimer, by less than one minute. It was thanks to the time bonuses (and probably some team tactics) that shifted the balance of power towards the Spaniard. If the Vuelta followed the route of this year's Tour de France and not have given out the bonuses, Contador and Leipheimer would have been tied. (Since they time to the decimal, Contador had a slight edge and would have won anyways.)

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Week 2 of the Vuelta ended the very same way as the first week. Italian Paolo Bettini (Quick Step) won the stage before the rest day while the GC favorites held out for a huge showdown on Saturday. Too bad none of this week's stages or results were the biggest news. Lance Armstrong's recent announcement that he will come out of retirement easily overshadowed anything the Vuelta could have produced. But as this week ends, the attention will return to the mountain goats as they tackle the final stretch of the last 3 week race of the 2008 season.

Stage 7 was the first big mountain stage of the the Tour. I wish I could comment on it but the entire broadcast was rained out. CyclingTV's coverage (and others as well since it was a problem with the feed) consisted of a recap of the early part of the stage and the final 1km run into the finish line. From what I've read, the stage was dominated by a day long break of which the winner, Alessandro Ballan (Lampre), broke away from to win the stage. The classics rider showed he can climb the big mountains as well. Behind him, the GC contenders revved it up in the final kilometer. Big favorite, Alberto Contador (Astana) attacked his challengers but was only able to gain 5 seconds for his hard work. Ballan ended up taking over the gold jersey as the new leader of the Tour.

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Week 1 of the 2008 Vuelta closed with a lot of action, many changes in leadership and a fine butt whipping by Astana. Mirroring the Giro, this year's Tour of Spain started out with a short team time trial. These exist purely for show as minimal time can be gained between the GC contenders. Nevertheless, it did produce a lot of suffering as most teams finished with well less than the 9 riders each team started with. Surprise winner, Liquigas finished 8 seconds ahead of Euskaltel - Euskadi and put leader Filippo Pozzato in the first gold leader's jersey.

The second stage was very similar to this year's stage 1 of the Tour de France and consisted of a sharp uphill just before the finish. And just like the Tour, Spanish champ Alejandro Valverde (Caisse d'Epargne), triumphed and ended the day with the leader's jersey. Proving to everyone that his form is good, Valverde still insisted he is here to win stages and not for a high placing on GC.

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Link: http://www.lavuelta.com

Note: This post was written on Friday but because of server problems, this didn't get posted until Sunday.

It's almost September, a full month after an exciting Tour de France and big time cycling is back! Yes, the 63rd running of the Vuelta a España, or the Tour of Spain, will commence this Saturday, August 30th and finish 3 weeks later on September 21st. The final grand tour of this season will see some big guns battling it out in a war that wasn't allowed to take place in July.

Spain's Alberto Contador and his Astana team are back with a vengeance to prove once again that they are both the best stage racing team in the world and that Contador is the best stage racer in the world. Joining Contador at the top of the favorites list are this year's Tour champ Carlos Sastre (Team CSC-Saxo Bank), Alejandro Valverde (Caisse d'Epargne), Damiano Cunego (Lampre), Igor Antón (Euskaltel Euskadi) and Contador's teammates Levi Leipheimer and Andreas Klöden.

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Now that the 2008 Tour de France has come to a close, I can honestly say I was dead wrong. Wrong in who I predicted to win and how the race would have panned out. There were a lot of surprises and a few disappointments but it was filled with action! Here's the run down.

Spanish rider Carlos Sastre (Team CSC-Saxo Bank) proved he was the strongest rider throughout the 3 weeks and came away as the undisputed winner of this year's Tour. Sastre kept under the radar until it mattered and showed he was the freshest of all of the contenders when it counted, in the final Stage 20 time trial. At 33 years old, Sastre had always been a podium contender but just missed that little bit of something to put him over the edge. Well, he had that little bit of something this year. But also, he (and whomever would have won) benefited from the absence of Alberto Contador and Levi Leipheimer (Astana) making this Tour as open as the 1999 Tour was. Way to go Carlos!

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