Vuelta 2014: Favourites stage 5 - Bouhanni vs Degenkolb/Sagan combination

At 40 kilometres the long and not particularly steep 3rd category climb. Upon cresting a 14 kilometres descend lays waiting and then a false flat (1.3%) finale in 800 metres.

Degenkolb, Matthews and Sagan may want to team up and speed up the last climb to exhaust Nacer Bouhanni, otherwise the pure speed of the 24-year old Frenchman could be decisive in the bunch sprint. On the other hand, the German and Aussie are no snails themselves. The Slovak however seems not his best self in Spain, dropping on climbs he normally eats for breakfast.

Other competing sprinters are Moreno Hofland, Jens Debusscherre, Matteo Pelucchi and Andrea Guardini.

Favourites

John Degenkolb
Peter Sagan
Nacer Bouhanni
Michael Matthews

Outsiders
Moreno Hofland
Jens Debusscherre
Matteo Pelucchi
Andrea Guardini

Vuelta 2014 stage 5: Images and more

Click on the images to zoom

All stages

All stages

Route stage 5

Profile stage 5

Finish 5th stage (video)

Final kilometres

Scheduled times

Climb details

Vuelta Tweets

Start and finish at Google maps