spoiler: last km of today's vuelta stage

[Climb01742]

holy cow. that was incredible. both riders left it all on the mountain and had the balls to lay it on the line.

[thwart]

nice. :rolleyes:

come on, you already labeled it spoiler... for those of us at work with 'blocked' internet, what happened?

[tv_vt]

Video link anywhere?

[firerescuefin]

Froome and Cobo went at it...back and forth the last 500m. Looked like Froome might be taking the red jersey. Froome won by 1 sec...Cobo leads overall by 13 seconds

[retrofit]

Truly a great finish; I thought Harmon (?), the Brit announcer, was going to wet his pants!

Link for the final 4 K (in Spanish): Vuelta Vid (http://www.rtve.es/deportes/20110907/cobo-saca-raza-para-no-perder-vuelta-pena-cabarga/459997.shtml)

[bobswire]

Reminded me of two great boxers going all out in the 15 rnd with neither wanting to give a quarter.
You can skip the beginning of this video from about two minutes on the real action starts.
http://www.steephill.tv/players/youtube3/?title=Stage+17+Highlights&dashboard=vuelta-a-espana&id=_mFDtlQXCRQ&yr=2011

[zmudshark]

Been a really good Vuelta. Yesterday was impressive, as well.

[ultraman6970]

Is really interesting to hear these commentators. A lot of passion :)

Truly a great finish; I thought Harmon (?), the Brit announcer, was going to wet his pants!

Link for the final 4 K (in Spanish): Vuelta Vid (http://www.rtve.es/deportes/20110907/cobo-saca-raza-para-no-perder-vuelta-pena-cabarga/459997.shtml)

[jghall]

Agree, lot of fun today.

It would have been interesting to see what might have been if Froome had not spent 1/3 of the Vuelta riding for Wiggins.

[Wilkinson4]

Wowowwow!!! Would love to see that in Le Tour instead of the cat and mouse we seem to see.

mIKE

[ultraman6970]

simply EPIC.

Giro was great, vuelta even better, TdF just got 2 wussies that were looking back all the time and a spaniard making them stop signs with his hand. Not epic!

[ultraman6970]

Well, pro is pro and thats what they have to do, many pros do not win races just because teams have stars and those have to win. Kind;a suck somehow because eventho somebody could have the legs to win a stage he had to wait or simply just leave his ideas behind for the other guy. Froom rode great today, the stage that will be even better will saturday's, cat1 climb then a flat, i see froom going to the attack again.

Agree, lot of fun today.

It would have been interesting to see what might have been if Froome had not spent 1/3 of the Vuelta riding for Wiggins.

[firerescuefin]

Leaders are leaders for a reason. Wiggins earned the right to be the leader on that team and went down on one of the toughest climbs ever (while in the red jersey). Froome has earned the right to race for the win and earned his stripes to be a designated leader in future races.

[bironi]

Thanks James,
That was fun viewing.
Byron

[54ny77]

Indeed that was an AWESOME finish! :beer:

[Ray]

I just watched the stage this morning so didn't open this thread yesterday. But, yeah, WOW, that was something. First I couldn't believe Froome could get that big a gap over Cobo - it wasn't really a gap, he'd completely dropped him and I thought left him for dead. Then I couldn't believe Cobo could close it down. Then I couldn't believe once he had, that he still had enough left to pass Froome for the apparent win, and then I REALLY couldn't believe Froome could re-pass Cobo in the last, what, 25 meters or so? All at grades north of 15%! That all of this could happen within less than a kilometer was kind of astounding. And, yeah, in retrospect Froome clearly should have been the leader of the team - if Wiggins had been working for him the days he was working for Wiggins, he'd likely be winning this race by a fair margin. As is, he probably finishes second. But its not like Wiggins hadn't earned it and it seemed the right move at the time. And now Froome has earned that right, at least for races with these kinds of steeps in them.

-Ray