So at last, a true mountain stage, full of non-stop climbing action. While each individual climb (including the climactic Alto de Abantos) is not impressive, it's possible that in the aggregate it will be an h.c. stage, more or less. Given the short nature of the time trial Saturday, the leaders Evans and Menchov can't count on making back too many seconds then, so they'd do well to keep today's losses to a minimum. There's no reason they can't hang on to Sastre, especially after the effort Sastre made yesterday... but that's to be determined. Today, the Vuelta will be won on the road.
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