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The 2012 Vuelta a España began on 18 August, and stage 11 occurred on 29 August. The 2012 edition began with a team time trial stage – where each member of a team started together racing against the clock – in Pamplona, Navarre with the race remaining in Spain until the finish to the eighth stage, with a summit finish at the Collada de la Gallina in Andorra. After the ninth stage, the race's first rest day saw the riders travel across Spain by air from Barcelona to Ponteareas; a road stage was followed by the only individual time trial of the race, where each remaining member of the starting peloton of 198 riders competed against the clock. The were the winners of the race-opening team time trial, recording a time ten seconds quicker than any other squad; their first rider to cross the line, Jonathan Castroviejo, became the first race leader as a result. He maintained his lead through the first mass-start stage the following day – the first of four stage victories for German sprinter John Degenkolb, who also won stages 5, 7 and 10 – but lost the lead following the first summit finish of the race in Eibar. The ''rojo'' jersey remained within the team however, as Alejandro Valverde picked up the race lead after pipping Joaquim Rodríguez in a photo-finish at the stage end. Valverde gave up the lead the following day, after crashing with several other members of his team just as the peloton's pace was being increased by the team on the front, . As a result, Valverde apportioned blame to , while his team manager, at one point, pulled alongside his opposite number from for discussions. Rodríguez assumed the lead of the race then, but held a marginal one-second lead ahead of Chris Froome. There were no changes in the classification until another summit finish on the sixth stage, when Rodríguez and Froome were the two contenders for the stage victory. Froome had attacked to bring himself and Rodríguez, but a second attack from Rodríguez brought him clear, and with time bonuses on the line, extended his lead to ten seconds. In Andorra, it again came down to the main favourites for the race; for a time, Alberto Contador attacked off the front and maintained a lead of around ten seconds – looking for his first victory since his return from a doping ban – before tying up and Valverde and Rodríguez beat him to the line, with Froome having cracked further back. Rodríguez put another twenty seconds into his lead the following day after attacking on the final climb, and his advantage of around a minute prior to the individual time trial was sufficient for him to maintain the lead after the stage; he put in the seventh-fastest time on the stage to keep the leader's jersey, but by only a second from Contador, who moved ahead of Froome in the classification. As a result, Rodríguez topped the overall standings with the more mountainous second half of the Vuelta still to race. ==Stage 1== ;18 August 2012 — Pamplona, , team time trial (TTT) For the third year in succession, the Vuelta began with a team time trial; on this occasion, it began in the Navarre city of Pamplona, hosting the Vuelta for the first time since 1994 when France's Laurent Jalabert won the thirteenth stage of that year's race. The stage itself was in and around Pamplona, with the final kilometre of the stage following the route of the Running of the Bulls, held as part of the festival of San Fermín the month before. Just like the bull-run, the stage finished in the middle of the Plaza de Toros, the city's main bullring. were the first of the race's 22 squads to begin the stage, wearing a different team kit to normal; having received dispensation from the Union Cycliste Internationale, the team wore white and red skin-suits instead of their customary green. However, with a time of 20' 18", the squad ultimately finished the stage in last place. The teams entered the course at four-minute intervals; were the second team in and comfortably lowered the earlier benchmark, recording a time almost a minute quicker. , who won the team time trial in May's Giro d'Italia, were also setting a good time on course before a crash took down three of the team's riders, and delayed Andrew Talansky, the team's main general classification contender.〔 were the next team to top the timesheets, setting a time of 19' 01" for the course,〔 which held for some time. started the stage slowly but a strong second half of the course pulled them into contention for stage honours, and ultimately edged out by a small margin.〔 They were followed by , who also recorded a time of 19' 01", despite team members Tony Martin and Grand Tour debutant Zdeněk Štybar being led off course by a motorcycle. However, they were marginally quicker than both and . It was not until the final team to start the stage that the time – and the 19-minute barrier – was beaten. had the honour of starting last due to Juan José Cobo – the winner of the 2011 edition of the race for – being amongst their nine riders. The team were only two seconds slower than to the intermediate time-check,〔 kept their pace up and recorded a time of 18' 51" for the course,〔 to record the first Grand Tour team time trial victory for a Spanish squad in nine years. As the first rider to cross the line, Jonathan Castroviejo assumed the first red jersey of the race for the general classification leader, with four of his team-mates in the same time and Cobo in sixth place, having been distanced, by four seconds, in the closing metres.〔 |} 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「2012 Vuelta a España, Stage 1 to Stage 11」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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