Vuelta a España 2012 stage 1 is a 16.5 km Team Time Trial (TTT) in the city of Pamplona, Basque Country.
Vuelta a España 2012 Stage 1 quick info
- DATE: August 18, Saturday
- STAGE TYPE: Team Time Trial (TTT)
- START-FINISH: Pamplona (455 m) > Pamplona (460 m)
- STAGE DISTANCE: 16.5 km
Vuelta a España 2012 Stage 1 profile
Last 5 kilometers
Pamplona
Pamplona or Iruña (Basque: [iɾuɲa]) is the historical capital city of Navarre, in Spain, and of the former Kingdom of Navarre.
Pamplona is located in the middle of Navarre. It is 92 kilometers from the city of San Sebastián, 117 kilometers from Bilbao, 735 kilometers from Paris, and 407 kilometers from Madrid.
The city is famous worldwide for the San Fermín festival (from July 6 to 14) in which the running of the bulls is one of the main attractions. This festival was brought to literary renown with the 1926 publication of Ernest Hemingway‘s novel, The Sun Also Rises.
Pamplona is also a beautiful green city and ranks the highest in environment and recycling cities in Spain and Europe.
How to go to Pamplona?
By Air
Pamplona has a small airport connected with several cities. Iberia fly several times a day from Madrid and Barcelona; TAP from Lisbon. There are some international airports nearby like Bilbao (156 km), Zaragoza (170 km), or Biarritz, France (115 km). There are also several flights from the UK, Ireland, and Germany.
By Train
There are daily trains between Pamplona and Madrid, Barcelona, Vitoria, Galicia, and Asturias. Urban busses links train station and downtown.
By car
Driving to Pamplona from Madrid 4 hours, Barcelona 4 hours, Biarritz 1.5 hours, Bilbao 1.5 hours. Underground parking is widely available.
By bus
Taking on a bus is the cheapest way to go to Pamplona. Several daily bus services from Madrid, Barcelona, San Sebastián, Bilbao, Vitoria, Zaragoza, and other cities.
Movistar won the opening Team Time Trial stage of the Vuelta a España 2012
Spanish team Movistar took a surprise win at the opening 16.5 km team time trial stage of the Vuelta a España 2012 and Spaniard Jonathan Castroviejo pulled on the leader’s red jersey in the Vuelta a España. Rabobank of Netherlands was second with Omega Pharma-QuickStep of Belgium in third.
Movistar team manager Eusebio Unzué said: “I’m extremely happy. Firstly, because it was a victory against very big rivals that showed to be pretty balanced to each other. Today we were talking about a crucial factor: mental focus, feeling confident, concentrated on such an effort a discipline like team time trialing obliges you. Every rider was riding with incredible suffering, on full steam for painful 19 minutes.”
It looked as though Rabobank would take the win until Movistar, Vuelta 2011 winner Juan Jose Cobo’s team, as the last team to start, rolled down the ramp. Movistar had started very strongly. At the first checkpoint it was two seconds down on Sky but 11 seconds ahead of Rabobank. With the local spectator’s support, and with legendary Miguel Indurain watching inside the team car, Movistar demolished Rabobank’s time by 10 seconds, finishing in a time of 18:51.
American team Garmin-Sharp was unlucky. Disaster struck when a few of its riders crashed just after the intermediate time check. General classification contender Andrew Talansky remained upright but the damage to the rhythm was irreparable, and the team crossed the finish line in second-last, 1:27 behind the winners.
Rabobank managed to just about hold onto its lead, and crossed the line to slip into the provisional lead by less than a second, Omega Pharma-Quick Step was next on course, but had slipped back a little in the final kilometers and finished the stage an even smaller fraction of a second behind the Dutch team and took the provisional second place.
Lotto-Belisol, the Belgian team, was seven seconds down at the halfway point, but accelerated in the second half and cross the finishline in 19:03, just two seconds behind the provisional leader Rabobank team.
With one of the pre-race favourites in Chris Froome, team Sky, the runner up from both the 2011 Vuelta a España and the 2012 Tour de France, blasted through the halfway point in 9:08, to go five seconds quicker than Omega Pharma-Quick Step had been. However, they crossed the finish line in 19:03 to go into fourth place.
With the other pre-race favourite Alberto Contador, the Saxo Bank-Tinkoff Bank team, was four seconds down on Team Sky at halfway, and were four seconds behind Rabobank at the finish.
Rabobank looked like it was going to hold on to take the stage but, having crossed the 8.1km checkpoint just two seconds slower than Team Sky, the Movistar team accelerated in the second part and crossed the finish line in 18:51 and took the race lead from Rabobank, won the stage.
Vuelta a España 2012 Stage 1 Results
- Movistar Team Spain 0:18:51
- Rabobank Cycling Team Netherlands @0:00:10
- Omega Pharma-Quick Step Belgium
- BMC Racing Team USA
- Team Sky Great Britain @0:00:12
- Lotto-Belisol Belgium
- Saxo Bank-Tinkoff Bank Denmark @0:00:14
- Katusha Team Russia @0:00:15
- Euskaltel-Euskadi Spain @0:00:28
- Orica-GreenEdge Australia @0:00:33
- Team Astana Kazakhstan @0:00:34
- AG2R la Mondiale France
- Vacansoleil-DCM Netherlands @0:00:35
- Liquigas-Cannondale Italy @0:00:41
- Cofidis France @0:00:47
- Lampre-ISD Italy @0:00:54
- RadioShack-Nissan Luxembourg @0:00:55
- FDJ-BigMat France @0:00:57
- Argos-Shimano Netherlands @0:00:59
- Andalucía Caja Granada Spain @0:01:01
- Garmin-Sharp USA @0:01:27
- Caja Rural Spain
Sources
- La Vuelta official website
- Pamplona on Wikipedia
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