"Race far from over," says CSC

Despite a moment of weakness on the final climb in yesterday's Stage 17 of the Vuelta, tough-as-nails Spaniard Carlos Sastre fought his way back to the group containing race leader Alejandro Valverde, maintaining his third position overall. His tenacity gives renewed hope to the Team CSC camp that the race is far from over.

"We were in deep trouble when Valverde escaped and Carlos was in between the two groups, but he was fantastic and fought his way back on the descent," recalled directeur sportif Kim Andersen on team-csc.com.

"It might've been a mistake on Valverde's behalf not to wait for Carlos, because it was pretty obvious that he still had spare energy - otherwise he wouldn't have been able to bridge that gap. Regardless it was a fantastic stage, and again we showed, that we're one of the stronger teams in this race.

"Tomorrow's stage [Stage 18] will without a doubt be extremely exciting, because there's not that much time separating the riders at the top. And today just went to show that the race is far from over yet," Andersen said.