The things we learned during the opening week of racing
Monday 2 September 2013 15:04, UK
The opening week of racing at the Vuelta a Espana was a pulsating mix of thrilling uphill finishes and hijacked sprint stages.
Irrespective of the superb first weeks enjoyed by Moreno and Roche - who were one-two in the general classification after stage nine - Rodriguez and Valverde remain the two key men anyone with designs on winning the Vuelta must first beat. Neither has yet shown the sort of explosive, attacking climbing that saw them excel at last year's Vuelta, but they have been in the picture on all of the uphill finishes in the race so far, often crossing the line side by side. They are both in striking distance in the general classification - Valverde fourth, 22 seconds down, and Rodriguez sixth, 56 seconds down - and will each know that it is the final week of the race when they will need to come to the fore, not the first.
