What a fantastic race that was 27th Volta Alentejo. I would have loved if some TV did coverage. The stage race consisted in 5 stages: 2 initial flat, 1 time trial, the queen stage (average mountain), and then a final flat stage again.

Like last year in the first day a breakaway had suceed. Liberty Seguros and Madeinox Boavista controlled the peloton, but after 100km with many attempts to escape, the young french Maxime Bouet (Agritubel) managed to skip the peloton and took Glen Chadwick (Rock Racing) and Vitaly Kondrut (ISD) with him.

These three guys finish with a advantage of 34 seconds for the peloton where Bruno Lima (Madeinox) was the faster. The stage winner was Bouet who beat in sprint Glen Chadwick and Kondrut respectively.

So, like last year the Portuguese teams failed to control the race in the first day. The main favourite Hector Guerra (winner of last year) and others like Tiago Machado, Moreau or David Blanco, would have to do seriously work to recover the time lost for these three.

Second stage and early break made by Eládio Jimenez (CC Loulé-Louletano) and William Aranzazo (Boyaca es para vivirla) but they were caught near the finish. The stage finished in a bunch sprint and Filipe Cardoso (Liberty) won, Cesar Quitério (Loulé AcquaShow) in 2nd and Bruno Lima (Madeionx) in 3th.

Third stage was the 19km time trial around Beja. Hector Guerra did the best time and took the lead in GC. Moreau was second in the ITT, and third was Timofey Kritskiy (Katusha).

In GC, Guerra led with less than two seconds for Kondrut, and three for Bouet.

On saturday was the queen stage (6 mountain's categories), and for the comments that i saw in Portuguese forums: "the most exciting of the season so far". With 60kms to finish Oscar Sevilha and Mancebo incorporated a group of 17 riders who led the race. The group had 2 minutes of advantage and even Isidro Nozal (Liberty) who was in that group, had to wait for the peloton to work for Guerra.

This group was caught, and in the final climb (6km to the finish) Hector Guerra had no teammates. However, this wasn't enough as Guerra was still able to caught in the last kilometer Glen Chadwick and Tiago Machado who had jumped the peloton. Guerra brought with him a group of some riders where the fastest was our veteran Candido Barbosa who took his first victory in Palmeiras Resort Tavira.

In the beggining of last day the GC remained the same, and Hector Guerra could be the first rider to win the Volta ao Alentejo for two times.

GC:

1º Héctor Guerra (Liberty Seguros), 13h29m56s
2º Vitaliy Kondrut (ISD), a 2s
3º Maxime Bouet (Agritubel), a 3s
4º Christophe Moreau (Agritubel), a 18s
5º Glen Chadwick (Rock Racing), a 19s

So, in the last stage, Hector Guerra only had to pay attention to intermediate sprints and the final sprint. For the first point Liberty let a breakaway of ten riders to gain the intermediates sprints, but when this group had a gap of 1.30, Liberty took the chase. Initially thought that Liberty will let this breakaway suceed, but the gap was down to 20 seconds!! Palmeiras took that help and caught the fugitives. Was more one bunch sprint and the finish was a little uphill, Candido Barbosa (Palmeiras) took his second stage at sprint, and surprises of the surprises: Maxime Bouet (Agritubel) was third!!! and took the yellow jersey, for one second!!

One more time the DS of Libery Seguros (Américo Silva) wasn’t good in the picture because Liberty helped to chase that front group where weren’t any GC threat. Even in the final sprint, unlike Moreau and Nicolas Jalabert who helped Bouet to take that third place, in Liberty no one helped Guerra in that finish, and he was 4th just behind Bouet!! For Hector Guerra this is his third Volta ao Algarve that he finished with the best time. In 2004 he had a penalization because of his time trial (many criticized the decision of the judges). Last year he won, and in this edition, he lost because of the bonus times. (in the three last editions there wasn’t!!)

Volta ao Alentejo has proud to say that probably is the only race that in 27th editions, nobody has won more than one edition.