VaE: Tony Martin wins as Chris Froome surprises everyone

Tony Martin did what he came to the Vuelta to do and won the Stage 10’s individual time-trial, while Chris Froome surprised everyone and moves in to red.

Martin rolled off the ramp over an hour down on the day’s leader, Bauke Mollema, and blasted the rest of the pack away. Fabian Cancellara was the stage’s leader, at the time, but Martin stopped the watch at 1 minute 27 seconds up on the Swiss rider. The German’s time only looked threatened when Bradley Wiggins was one seconds ahead of him, at the first intermediate checkpoint. Wiggins then faded towards the end and Martin’s time remained.

Froome was really the surprise of the day, when he came home 57 seconds down on Martin and moved in to the lead of the race. The Kenyan born rider has been on Wiggins’ side for the first week of the tour, but moves 20 seconds ahead of his team leader. Team Sky now has two riders in the top two, with Jakob Fuglsang splitting the pair. Fuglsang may believe he could have taken the red jersey though; he suffered a slipped chain, just metres after the starting ramp.



Vincenzo Nibali has also kept his victory hopes alive, sitting 31 seconds behind Froome. The Italian didn’t set the world alight, but a solid result from him makes sure he hasn’t slipped down the rankings. Joaquim Rodriguez hoped he could put some time in to his main rivals, on Stage 9, but instead he cracked. This was added to, the Spaniard is not known for his time-trialling skills, as he tumbles down the GC. El Purito has a 3:23 gap to the leader and lies down in 14th.

Despite being bumped out of the red jersey, after only holding for one day, Mollema limited his losses and remains in the top ten. Sylvain Chavanel is still the only rider to hold the leaders jersey over multiple stages. The French national champion is 10 minutes down in the classification now and is likely to fall further, in the high mountains. Froome will have a day to absorb the reality of being the leader, before the peloton hit the mountains again.

Stage 11 ensures the riders don’t get too comfortable, with a third and two second category climbs. This is all before, yet another, mountain top finish on the Alto de la Manzaneda. Froome has been showing his mountain prowess, during this tour, and could hold on to the jersey for much of the week. His teammate Wiggins will be eager to get a bit closer though and the pair could use this to put some big time gaps in to the other contenders.