Vintage Vino wins
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ByEurosport
Published 16/09/2006 at 13:05 GMT
Alexandre Vinokourov won the 20th stage of the Vuelta a Espana on Saturday, the 27.5 Km time trial between Rivas Futura and Rivas Vaciamadrid. The Kazakh of Astana consolidated his gold jersey lead over Alejandro Valverde in the overall general classifica
CYCLING Vinokourov Vuelta 2006
Image credit: dpa
Vinokourov, who was celebrating his 33rd birthday, received the perfect present with a third stage win.
After a slow start, Vinokourov finished six seconds ahead of Samuel Sanchez of Spain, with Sanchez's compatriot Valverdo third, 19 seconds back.
Vinokourov is now 1:12 seconds up on Valverde, with Kazakh Andrey Kashechkin in third, 3:12 seconds behind.
Barring mishaps on Sunday's easy 142.2 km final stage starting and finishing in Madrid, the Astana rider is poised to take the first major Tour of his career.
"I started cautiously but when I saw I could win the stage I stepped on the accelerator," Vinokourov said.
"A victory like this on my 33rd birthday is a good present to myself.
"I had a rough first week here in the Vuelta, but after I won two stages in Lugo and La Cobertoria, things changed radically."
Vinokourov said his next objective was a good performance at the World Championships in Austria in both the time trial event on Thursday and the road race on Sunday week.
"Neither will be easy because now I have to recover from this race but my motivation is very high indeed," he concluded.
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