Following the Volta? Tomorrow it hits the Douro, 129km from Santa Maria da Feira to Peso da Régua
Today is the race's only rest day, spent in Santa Maria da Feira. Alexis Guerin reaches it 1:12 clear of team-mate Artem Nych, with Tiago Antunes third at 1:52.
The Volta a Portugal stops today. It is the only rest day of this edition and it happens in Santa Maria da Feira, at the Europarque, where the teams will do massages, arithmetic and a short spin to keep the legs honest.
Tomorrow the break ends in the least forgiving way available: 129 kilometres from Santa Maria da Feira to Peso da Régua, the race’s first proper argument with the Douro. The route is set out in the stage-by-stage guide published by the Portuguese Cycling Federation.
The gaps going into the pause
Alexis Guerin holds the yellow jersey 1 minute and 12 seconds ahead of Artem Nych, who happens to ride for the same team — which hands that squad the rare luxury of controlling both top places. Tiago Antunes sits third at 1:52 and is the best-placed Portuguese rider overall.
Stage five was the 17.4-kilometre time trial from Anadia to Águeda, where Julius Johansen won again and Guerin strengthened his lead. The Dane beat Antunes by 30 seconds; Guerin came eighth, 53 seconds down, and still took time off the men who actually threaten him. That is how a Volta gets decided on a day when nothing looks dramatic.
Why tomorrow matters
A 129-kilometre stage is short, and short stages in the Douro are rarely quiet. The valley’s climbs are steep rather than long, the heat sits in the terraces, and any team whose leader is 1:52 down has exactly one week left to invent something.
The race left Lisbon on 5 August and finishes in Porto on the 16th, taking in 71 municipalities. It has already climbed the Torre, cooked itself across the Alentejo and settled a sprint by sixteen hundredths of a second. What it has not done yet is the north, and the north is usually where this race changes hands.
By Vasco Almada
Image: Vitor Oliveira / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 2.0)
