Spectrum: The Vuelta a Espana starts for the 70th time this weekend. Reason enough to deal with the Tour of Spain in our series of articles on cycling history. We have chosen what is perhaps the strangest moment in the many decades of history of the tour. It's 10 years ago that the Colombian Mauricio Ardila got the finish line wrong and gave away the day's victory.
Anyone who has ever ridden a race, whether amateur, amateur or pro, will know what it feels like to finally see the finish line after agonizing hours in the saddle. Then it's time to mobilize all your strength again, until when you cross the white line on the dark asphalt, the pressure suddenly drops. However, you should always be absolutely sure that it is also the finish line that you cross there before you then put it back. Otherwise, you could end up like the Colombian Mauricio Ardila on September 9, 2005 in the final of the 13th stage of the Vuelta a Espana to Santuario de la Bien Aparecida.
Together with the two Spaniards Samuel Sanchez and Oscar Pereiro, Ardila broke away from the peloton a few kilometers before the finish. Ardila then opened the sprint unusually early, distanced and distanced his competitors. Everything looked like a stage win for the Davitamon-Lotto pro, but then the unbelievable happened. About 400m before the day's goal was the goal of the last mountain classification, including the finish line on the asphalt. In the heat of the moment, Ardila mistook this for the milestone.
With an exhausted laugh, he threw his arms up as he crossed the mountain classification, stopped pedaling and cheered exuberantly. Sanchez and Pereiro, his opponents who were actually defeated, seemed almost as surprised as Ardila himself at first, but they reacted quickly and passed the puzzled Colombian. Samuel Sanchez won ahead of Pereiro – the unlucky Ardila only came third.
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