La Vuelta a España 2012 – Stage 13: Santiago de Compostela – Ferrol, 172.8 km

‘It’s awfully early,’ I thought to myself when I saw Degenkolb’s Argos boys commit with 50 K to go during Stage 13 of the La Vuelta a España 2012. And so it proved, there was a lot of firepower in the seven man break; Italian fast man Elia Viviani (Liquigas), hard working Linus Gerdemann (Shack), harder than nails Juan Antonio Flecha (Sky), Giro podium finisher Thomas De Gendt (Vacansoleil-DCM), GreenEDGE flyers Cameron Meyer and Simon Clarke – the latter already a stage winner in this race.

And a certain Mr Steve Cummings from the BMC Racing team.

There’s a Spanish word, ‘Caudillo’ – it’s usually applied to politicians or military men, it means; ‘Strongman.’

Steve was definitely the Caudillo, today.

When Steve Cummings rode for Discovery Channel in 2007, he rode in the service of Alberto Contador; ‘Bert’ told the Disco mechanic Allan Butler;

“When you ask Cummings to ride on the front – he rides, I’d have him on my team any time!”

Praise doesn’t come much higher.

Cummings is the pro’s pro – not flash; just big, strong and tough.

His first big result was winning the British junior road race championship in 1999; by 2004 he was an Olympic silver medallist in the team pursuit for GB.

He rode with no frills Belgian squad Landbouwkrediet for 2005 – the year he took a rainbow jersey in the team pursuit.

It was team pursuit Worlds silver and Commonwealth gold with Landbou in 2006; and in 2007 he went to work for Alberto at Disco – not much freedom to go for results there.

Barloworld was the name on the jersey for 2008 and it should have been his breakthrough year – he won a stage and was second on GC in the Tour of Reggio Calabria, won the Coppa Bernochi and was second on GG in the Tours of Denmark and Britain.

The following season should have built on the solid foundation of 2008 but as Cummings explained when he signed for Sky at the start of 2010;

“The 2009 season started well, I was seventh in the Trofeo Laigueglia but after that, I went to South Africa for the Giro del Capo series of races.

“It took me until about August to recover from that – I was riding the Tour of the Med and it was 10 degrees; within 36 hours I was riding in South Africa with the temperature at 46 degrees; then 24 hours after The Cape it was back to 10/15 degrees at Tirreno.

“I had problems from then on with my muscles filling up with fluids – one thing I want to make clear is that I specifically asked the team not to send me to South Africa; I knew that I would have that problem under those circumstances.”

By the end of 2009 the word was that Cummings and Barloworld manager, Claudio Corti couldn’t be in the same room anymore.

The Sky was the limit in 2010 and he rode the hard kilometres in the Tour and Giro.

In 2011 he started well with a stage win in the Tour of the Algarve; but lost three months mid-season due to illness.

The form returned as the season came to a close with second in the Tour of Britain, silver in the British elite time trial championship and fourth in the Tour of Beijing.

And of course, he was one of the stalwarts of Cav’s triumph in Copenhagen.

But despite these strong showings for Sky he opted to go with ‘super team’ BMC for 2012.

But it’s not been a good season – he broke his pelvis in the Tour of the Algarve in February, then his left wrist in the Tour of the Basque Country and had bad crashes in the Tour of California and in the Tour de France.

All of that was forgotten today when he became a Grand Tour stage winner.

Inside the last 10 K it was apparent that Argos were burned out – Degenkolb was still there but with no team and no real organised chase he’ll have to wait a little longer for win number five.

Lotto-Belisol tried, so did Rabobank but the roads weren’t conducive to an organised chase and the chasers were as wasted as the breakaways.

Despite the fact that the parcours wasn’t savage and the chase wasn’t an HTC or Sky job, the ones, twos and threes constantly getting spat out of the back gave testimony to the fact that this was a very hard day in the saddle.

Meanwhile …

In the break, Flecha took a flyer at six to go, but it didn’t look like the move of a winner, more desperate than dynamic.

Cummings countered, bridged up and with four K to go made his own move – but this one did look good.

Committed, powerful and smooth – as you’d expect from a man who can ride 4,000 metres at 60 kph plus.

Meyer got up to Flecha and it was one against two against three – Viviani was gone, he’s spent too much time training on the track for his endurance not to have been affected.

Meyer and Flecha fought hard but Cummings was too strong and as the red kite flashed past it was looking good.

BMC’s most ardent Liverpool FC fan crossed the line alone to take his biggest ever victory with time to give a salute to the crowd.

“When I went, it was full gas, but the whole day was hard.

“I knew that I could only win if I was alone; there were some fast boys in there. I waited for a good moment – and then all I could was to go 100%.

“It’s my best victory after what has been a very difficult year.”

It’s nice when the good guys win.

Tomorrow is the first of three days in the mountains – that low retirement rate is about to change.

And so is the GC – sleep well boys.

Adios amigos.

Results - La Vuelta a España 2012 - Stage 13