BiciRace.com :: 2006 Vuelta a Andalucía

2006 Vuelta a Andalucía, Stage 4

Vuelta a Andalucía, Spain

Stage 4, Ecija (Sevilla) - Ronda (Málaga), 162.1K

15 February

Ale-Jet the Double-Rocker

Ale-Jet the Double-Rocker, photo: Quick-Step

Alessandro Petacchi (Milram) is a double-rocker ... Cranking out the sprint beats for the second day in a row over World Champion Tom Boonen (Quick-Step). The stage 4 sprint looked like a repeated of stage 3, with Ale-Jet proving he has the sprint speed over Tornado Tom. If you are keeping score, it is Petacchi 2 to Boonen 0. Carlos García Quesada (Unibet.com) came home forth and kept the GC lead.

The peloton was in no hurry to get moving today and probably would have preferred a café con leche in a warm team bus instead of freezing on a bike. But hey, that's the life of a pro.

Probably due to the cold, there was no real action to speak of early on. That is until Jan Hruska (3 Molinos Resort) took a dig at kilometer 54. After a few K of solo action Benoît Joachim (Discovery), Frank Vandenbroucke (Unibet.com) and Oleg Chuzdha (Comunidad Valenciana) tried to get on terms with Hruska. It took some doing, but the threesome made it a foursome gaining up to a maximum of 4'30" over the peloton by the 65K marker. Hruska used his cunning tactics to take the second hot spot sprint at kilometer 85 ahead of Joachim and Vandenbroucke.

Today's parcours suited the sprinters to a tee since it contained only two category 3 climbs. A drag race finale in Ronda was all but assured once the big sprinters teams put their men on the front.

The escapees dragged their carcasses over the final climb with a slim 1'39" advantage over the peloton and would soon succumb to the inevitable, but not before a little final bravado. Of the escapees Chuzhda was the first to get scooped up while the other three fought fate.

The finale was not quite a walk in the park like yesterday, it contained a slight uphill finish. Sig Petacchi nearly read the run home wrong, but was able to just come by Tornado Tom at the last second. Rounding out the podium was again, Graeme Brown (Rabobank).
- Paco

Results: 4:07'11"
1 Alessandro Petacchi (Ita) Milram 2 Tom Boonen (Bel) Quick-Step 3 Graeme Brown (Aus) Rabobank 4 Carlos García Quesada (Spa) Unibet.com 5 Guido Trenti (USA) Quick-Step 6 Iñaki Flores (Spa) Euskaltel-Euskadi 7 Luis Pasamontes (Spa) Unibet.com 8 Rodrigo García (Spa) Kaiku 9 Lénaïc Olivier (Fra) Agritubel 10 Ángel Gómez 11 Jesús Del Nero (Spa) 3 Molinos Resort 12 Roger Hammond (GBr) Discovery Channel 13 Koldo Fernández De 14 Matteo Tosatto (Ita) Quick-Step 15 Adolfo García Quesada 16 José Bonilla (CRi) 17 Joseba Albizu (Spa) Euskaltel-Euskadi 18 Marco Velo (Ita) Milram 19 Oliver Zaugg (Swi) Saunier Duval-Prodir 20 Marcus Burghardt (Ger) T-Mobile 21 Oscar Freire (Spa) Rabobank 22 Pedro Horrillo (Spa) Rabobank 23 Christophe Laurent (Fra) Agritubel 24 Baden Cooke (Aus) Unibet.com 25 Juan Carlos Dominguez (Spa) Unibet.com 26 Gorik Gardeyn (Bel) Unibet.com 27 Gilles Canouet (Fra) Agritubel 28 Luciano Pagliarini (Bra) Saunier Duval-Prodir 29 Jan Hruska (Cze) 3 Molinos Resort 30 Manuel Calvente (Spa) Agritubel ...

Gómez (Spa) Saunier Duval-Prodir

Larrea (Spa) Euskaltel-Euskadi

(Spa) Andalucia-Paul Versan
Comunidad Valenciana

GC:
1 Carlos García Quesada (Spa) Unibet.com 16'18".13
2 Rodrigo García (Spa) Kaiku
3 Adolfo García Quesada (Spa) Andalucia-Paul Versan 0.07
4 Iñaki Flores (Spa) Euskaltel-Euskadi 0.15
5 Luis Pasamontes (Spa) Unibet.com 0.18
6 José Bonilla (CRi) Comunidad Valenciana
7 Oliver Zaugg (Swi) Saunier Duval-Prodir
8 Manuel Lloret (Spa) Comunidad Valenciana 25.57
9 Jesús Del Nero (Spa) 3 Molinos Resort 27.25
10 Manuel Calvente (Spa) Agritubel 27.31
11 José Luis Martínez (Spa) Comunidad Valenciana 27.33
12 Manuel Beltrán (Spa) Discovery Channel 27.35
13 Juan Carlos Dominguez (Spa) Unibet.com 27.36
14 Anton Luengo (Spa) Euskaltel-Euskadi 27.38
15 Alessandro Petacchi (Ita) Milram 31.19
16 Roger Hammond (GBr) Discovery Channel
17 Tom Boonen (Bel) Quick-Step
18 Juan Olmo (Spa) Andalucia-Paul Versan
19 Marco Velo (Ita) Milram 31.23
20 Ángel Gómez Gómez (Spa) Saunier Duval-Prodir 31.26
21 Jon Bru (Spa) Kaiku
22 Manuel Vázquez (Spa) Andalucia-Paul Versan
23 Vicente Ballester (Spa) Comunidad Valenciana
24 Jorge Azanza (Spa) Kaiku
25 Erik Dekker (Ned) Rabobank
26 Jesús Hernández (Spa) Relax-GAM
27 Benoît Joachim (Lux) Discovery Channel 31.32
28 Oscar Sevilla (Spa) T-Mobile
29 Christophe Laurent (Fra) Agritubel
30 Francisco Cabello (Spa) Andalucia-Paul Versan
...