Purito (Spoilers)

[chengher87]

I'm pleasantly surprised by the 3rd place of Purito. I didn't think that he'd do this well at the centenary Tour. He lost a good amount of time on his favorite terrain (medium stages with shorter steeper climbs) early on and did terrible in the first time trial. But he did a great job of limiting his losses and not blowing up like Contador. He's a tempo climber and every time Froome or Quintana attacked, instead of trying to keep their tempo, he rode sensibly. Contador was often the last GC hopeful to wheel-board Porte and Froome and yet he was passed many times near the Finish by Purito with a significant gap in between. He was able to put 3 minutes in everyone except Quintana and Froome in the last week of racing.

Purito is having a Sastre-like calender year. 2nd in last year's Giro, 3rd in last year's Vuelta, won La Fleche Wallone and Giro di Lombardia and now a 3rd place at one of the toughest Tour's in years. Too bad he was forced to domestique for so many years at Caisse D'Pargne before being let loose at Katusha.

On another note, Valverde has had a great Tour. He would have easily been in contention, but that 10 minute loss due to a puncture might have been the best thing for Movistar. It allowed Costa to freelance, winning two stages and freed Quintana of any domestique duties (2nd place, white jersey, KOM jersey).

[ultraman6970]

Rodriguez was one of the favs for this tour, one of his qualities is to know very well the other contenders and he knew that the last week was the one to make up for the time lost. He knows contador who knows since when and he knew he was going to handicap in the last 2 stages apparently because he forecast the colombian in 2nd and himself in 3rd place like a week ago. So he knew some how what was going to happen.

Hope he is able to win the vuelta, he never been able to win a grand tour ever, always some crap happens besides im not going to tell that his team is quite weak compared with the other GC teams. Basically he got 3rd on his own that is a lot more than other guys did with the whole team at their disposition.

[regularguy412]

And if I'm not mistaken, he narrowly won the World Tour Points crown last year and managed to do it on the final stage of the Vuelta,, no less. There's something to be said for a guy winning a year-long battle by riding up what amounted to a sidewalk at the top of a ski resort.

Mike in AR:beer:

[shovelhd]

Lighting up the cigar with Quintana looking on laughing. Love it.