Tuesday 1 September 2015 11:57, UK
The opening week of the Vuelta a Espana delivered pulsating racing, impressive wins and several surprises.
Tom Dumoulin holds the overall lead on the first rest day and the race is perfectly set up for the next two weeks.
Here, we look back at the lessons learned in the first 10 stages...
Dumoulin is far more than just a time-triallist
Dumoulin has long been regarded as one of the best up-and-coming time-triallists in cycling, but few held his climbing in high esteem. However, the 24-year-old has proved to both onlookers and himself that he can go uphill with the best by not just matching, but beating the likes of Chris Froome and Nairo Quintana so far at the Vuelta.
His performances on the first three summit finishes of the opening week were not overly surprising, but the manner in which he won the fourth summit finish, on stage nine - a 4km climb almost constantly in the high teens of gradient - suggested he is one of the best all-rounders in the sport. The question now is whether he can continue his climbing form on the longer climbs to come later in the race and keep hold of the leader's red jersey.
Froome will get stronger as the Vuelta wears on
When Froome was dropped and lost time on stage seven, it looked like he was feeling the effects of too many criteriums and "bacon butties" in the wake of his Tour de France win in July. His hopes of winning the Vuelta appeared slim.
Those fears were compounded when he was dropped early in the final climb of stage nine, but then hope suddenly returned when he caught back up with his rivals and almost won the stage. The way he rode easily away from the likes of Quintana and Alejandro Valverde in the final 1km justified his status as one of the pre-race favourites and given that his bad days in this race appear to be behind him, it is a safe presumption that he will only get stronger.
Ewan is a sprint great in the making
Caleb Ewan abandoned the Vuelta on stage 10 but his win on stage five did enough to confirm his status as the brightest young sprint prospect in the sport. Beating riders of the pedigree of John Degenkolb and Peter Sagan was impressive enough, but securing his first grand tour stage victory at just 21 - almost two years earlier than Mark Cavendish claimed his first - was doubly so.
Ewan is lightning-fast on both uphill drags and the flat, and he looks sure to become one of the best sprinters of his generation.
Race vehicles have to give riders more space
Sagan was riding well at the Vuelta and won stage three, but he was then crashed into by a motorbike while preparing for a tilt at victory on stage eight and subsequently left the race with his injuries. It was the second time a rider vying for a win has been taken out by a motorbike in recent weeks, after Greg Van Avermaet fell to the same fate at the Clasica San Sebastian in August. Both Sagan's Tinkoff-Saxo and Van Avermaet's BMC Racing teams threatened legal action against the respective race organisers and the two incidents surely have to be regarded as tipping points.
Motorbike riders have a difficult job, but too often they try to squeeze through small gaps and skirt too closely to the peloton, and the time has surely come for rider safety to be prioritised over the need for aesthetic photographs and television footage.
Quintana slow to get started
Having finished the Tour de France strongly but ultimately lost the race because of his bad start, it was fair to expect Quintana would be flying at the beginning of the Vuelta. However, although he is level on time with team-mate Valverde and one second ahead of Froome, he has arguably been the most subdued of the leading contenders for overall victory.
In the early stages, he appeared to be working as domestique for Valverde on the climbs, and when the race arrived at stage nine's difficult summit finish, he didn't have the legs and finished 18 seconds down on Froome. Admittedly, the climbs so far have not suited Quintana's style and the longer climbs he favours are still to come, but there can be no denying that there appears to be plenty of room for improvement in the Colombian's form.
The Vuelta is the most exciting grand tour
The Vuelta has arguably been the best grand tour of the season in each of the past four or five years and, so far, this edition is proving to be no different. Several stages already have provided thrilling action, not least stage nine, when the race favourites exchanged multiple attacks in one of the most aggressively contested summit finishes of 2015 so far.
Perhaps it is because few riders specifically target it, or maybe because it doesn't have the prestige of the Tour de France or Giro d'Italia and riders consequently race with less pressure and trepidation, but for whatever reason, the gloves come off at the Vuelta and the result is some of the best racing the sport has to offer.
