Scintillating weekend of summit finishes at the Vuelta

What a weekend of racing that was at the Vuelta and as I sit here writing this on a Monday morning I know that the best is yet to come...perhaps today as they tackle what some see as the Queen stage of this years Vuelta.

Saturday was especially exciting for the Canadian viewership as Ryder Hesjedal got himself into the days break yet again and this time was able to make it stick. Every since his GC ambitions faded, Hesjedal has been on the attack anytime we've seen a stage with hills. This time they gained enough of a lead to stay clear on the final climb -- a short but brutally steep rise -- and when Oliver Zaugg attacked it looked as though the big Canadian was going to fall short. But as we seen in this years Giro when Hesjedal's diesel engine kept him coming back to the wheel of a flying Nairo Quintana on stage 16 in which Hesjedal just lost out, he once more hauled his way up to Zaugg and then blew past for his first individual Grand Tour stage win since stage 12 of the 2009 Vuelta.

Later that day, in Hafjell, Norway, Canadian Catherine Pendrel won the woman's mountain bike world championships with another Canadian, Emily Batty, finishing in sixth. With the Tour of Alberta also in full swing and full of Canadian riders, it was quite the day for cycling in the Great White North.

The following day it was Przemyslaw Niemiec who won the stage, like Hesjedal, emerging from the days break but further down the road -- and not much further -- it was Alberto Contador who remained in control of the overall lead, though only by 31 seconds and nobody looks heads and shoulders better than the rest. Someone, if not all of them, are due a bad day along the way but nobody looks like they're ready to surge clear and destroy their opposition.

Right now it's between the Spanish Armada trio of Alberto Contador, Alejandro Valverde and Joaqium Rodriguez, with the Kenyan-British contingent of Chris Froome hanging on for dear life. And it's Froome who looks like he might get better in this final week more so than the rest. He came into this Vuelta clearly off form and it has shown as recently as this weekend when he was often hanging off the back of the final selection of GC contenders, following his power metre and riding steadily.

The rest might come to rue not taking the chance to bury the Sky rider when they had the chance yesterday but while they played a cat and mouse game of attacking and then slowing to watch one another, Froome dangled off the back, clawing his way back on when the Spaniards sat up. It only cost him 12 seconds to Valverde and Rodriguez, and 7 seconds to Contador, on the line when a more sustained effort might have seen him lose a lot more.

People will say it was Froome's reliance on the power metre that allowed him to do that, but it was as much the others watching one another and Froome riding it steady that kept him in contention. That said, there is the possibility that the rest couldn't maintain a sustained effort and that Contador's attacks over a 20 metre stretch of the climb before sitting up were the best he could muster in the hopes to crack his rivals. Did Froome know their surges couldn't be sustained and that if he kept his cool he wouldn't lose too much by the top? With a 1 minute, 20 second gap to Contador overall you get the feeling that Froome, if he can find his best form, is still very much in the mix with the toughest stages still to come.

A quick look at the top six on general classification shows just how close the racing is, especially between the top four, after those two summit finishes on the weekend:

1. Contador (TCS) in 58h31'35"

2. Valverde (MOV) +31"

3. Froome (SKY) +1'20"

4. Rodriguez (KAT) s.t.

5. Aru (AST) +2'22"

6. Uran (OPQ) +2'57"