The days of high drama and epic battles are (most likely) just in front of us, starting with the first individual time trial in Zaragoza tomorrow, followed by 3 difficult days in the Pyrénées.

Today's stage (Soria to Zaragoza, 165 km) offered a relatively easy roll after yesterday's climbs and high plateaus, but was no picnic because of the viscious crosswinds.
It was a fairly straightforward stage today, nonetheless.

Four riders escaped early and continued to build up their lead.
The four , comprised of Igor Astarloa (Saeco), Karsten Kroon (Rabobank), Mariano Piccoli (Lampre) and David Navas (CRF), went largely unchallenged for much of the course, reaching a margin of over 5 minutes with 80 km remaining.
Only José Martinez left the peloton to challenge the 4, but never got more than 2 minutes clear of the peloton before being overtaken.
The last 70 km entered into the plains of LaMancha, a region notorious for its winds. The winds have been a factor here in many previous tours, and in fact are so constant that one now finds these plains dotted with giant wind turbines.
The winds were no less a factor today; the peloton, broken into 2 major groups, went into evantail formation, resembling flocks of geese as they traversed the plains.
The breakaway group, though, couldn't manage that advantageous shape and saw their lead shrink as they tired.

As their margin shrunk (4'24" at 59km, 2'35" at 45 km, 1 1'47" at 30 km) it was only a question of time… They were overtaken at the 14 km mark, and the peloton bagan taking its form for the final sprint.
By the 7km mark, Fassa Bortolo had taken their position at the head of the peloton, leaving Petacchi perfectly placed.
The peloton was in momentary disarray as Alessandeo Cortinovis (Lampre) crashed, fortunately near the left side of the route; unfortunately, he left in an ambulance.

Petacchi was oblivious, though, as he dominated the sprint totally to cross the line several meters in front of his nearest competitor.

NOZAL keeps the overall leader's gold jersey, while David ETXEBARRIA rises to second overall.

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Stage classification

1 - PETACCHI fassa bortolo
2 - EDO angel Milaneza
3 - DEAN Julian CSC
4 - ZABEL telekom
5 - BUCCIERO saeco

General classification

1 - NOZAL
2 - ETXEBARRIA david qui était palcé dans le même temps que le 2éme Rodriguez et le 3ème reprend l'avantage sur eux au bénéfice des places.

Mountains

1 - CARDENAS 34
2 - PEREZ 25
3 - NOAZL 20
4 - JEKER 18
5 - SASTRE 16

Points

1 - PETACCHI
2 - ZABEL
3 - DEAN
4 - ETXEBARRIA

Combined

1 - NOZAL 15
2 - EXTXEBARRIA 16
3 - PEREZ 27
4 - RODRIGUEZ 21
5 - GONZALEZ de GALDEANO 22

Once keeps the team points classification

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