|
Stages:
|
18 |
|
Kms:
|
3.409,8 |
|
Riders:
|
100 |
|
Teams:
|
10 |
|
Kms/hour:
|
36,954 |
|
Retired:
|
49 |
With a slight prominent performance of the Spanish
riders, Vuelta a España 1965, though with different actors, was almost a repetition
of Vuelta a España 1962: Poulidor, favorite leader for the final victory,
was beaten by the rider from the MERCIER_BP Team, Rolf Wolfshohl. The French
star, came back to were he used to be, the second position.
Van Looy, Poulidor and Wolfshohl shared in this order their presence on the
top of the podium all throughout the race; they were almost the only protagonists
in this edition of Vuelta a España. The Belgian rider Van Looy, who won eight
stages, wore the Yellow Maillot during the first four stages. The Maillot,
then, passed on to the hands of Poulidor, after winning the 41-kilometre-long
mountainous time trial stage between Mieres and Puerto de Pajares. His victory
was then taken for granted since nothing seemed that he were going to go through
an awkward situation. However, as it happens many times, it was proved that
the enemy was at home and this was the young German rider Rolf Wolfshohl.
Too much confidence was, probably, what made Poulidor lose the race. The French
rider started to lose it in the eighth day, Benidorm - Sagunto, when several
riders brokeaway and, in theory they were easy to bridge up; but it was not
like that and the proceeding of the race was changed. Six riders, among them,
the German one, who became leader, arrived at the Finish with an advantage
of twelve minutes on the peloton. Although he assured that he did not mean
to disqualify Poulidor from his position and that he would keep on supporting
his team head, Wolfshohl was the protagonist of a new breakaway two days later,
in Circuito de Montjuich, along with Julio Jiménez this time. Reaffirming
his leadership, Antoine Magne, director of MERCIER_BP Team, stated that if
Wolfshohl kept on showing himself to be the strongest rider, the team would
work for him, and hey presto, the German rider was ahead of Poulidor in more
than six minutes in the Overall Standings.
The third consecutive leadership of Julio Jiménez in the Climbers Overall
Standings and the fourth position of Manzaneque in the Overall Standings were
the two more remarkable things among the Spanish performance.
