With Roberto Heras showing such dominance one week into the Vuelta a España, one wonders why he falls so flat in the Tour de France.

For the past two Tours, Heras has failed to deliver after making his high-profile departure from U.S. Postal Service at the end of the 2003 season. In the 2004 Tour, Heras abandoned in the Alps. This year he made it to Paris, but he was never a factor in the race.

“I am feeling that my body feels 100 percent for this Vuelta,” Heras said. “And during the Tour, it just wasn’t like that, even though this year was better than last year.”

The headlines Friday morning in the Spanish dailies were describing Heras’s dramatic win as “in the style of Armstrong.” Indeed, Heras was strong in the opening time trial and put down the hammer in the first climbing stage.

But at the Tour, Heras just doesn’t have the legs. In 2004, Heras said he never felt good from the start and eventually abandoned. This year, Heras raced less in the spring to arrive fresher to the Tour and said he was feeling good through the first week, but was unable to react on the first climbing stage to Courchevel.

“We have to look for an explanation on why this is happening. We’ll study it over the winter. Right now we don’t know why,” Heras said. “If we did, I could adapt to solve the problem.”

Thursday’s win was Heras’s eighth career victory at a Vuelta mountaintop finish and it positioned him as the clear favorite for a record fourth Vuelta crown. Heras shares the record with Tony Rominger, who won three straight Vueltas in the early 1990s.

Everyone agrees: Heras is the man to beat
Roberto Heras (Liberty Seguros) seems more confident and more dominant than ever in the Vuelta a España. The three-time champion looks to be in firm control of the race one week into the action.

“In the past few years, I’ve never seen Roberto Heras look so strong as he was on the climb to Valdelinares,” said Eusebio Unzué, director of Illes Balears. “There are still five or six very important tests, but if Heras can maintain this level in the Pyrenees, it will be very complicated to beat him.”

Saunier Duval’s sport director, Joxean Fernández Matxin, agreed, saying that Heras has sent a strong signal to the competition.

“He’s won three Vueltas, so logically he’s the favorite for victory, but he confirmed it at Valdelinares,” he said. “We will keep being the combative team that we are, even though we didn’t achieve our goal putting Joaquin Rodríguez in the leader’s jersey to arrive in Cataluyna.”

Beloki, Nardello and Lombardi make all three GTs
Three riders – Joseba Beloki (Liberty Seguros), Daniele Nardello (T-Mobile) and Giovanni Lombardi (CSC) – are racing in their third grand tour of the 2005 season.

Lombardi is the only one of the trio to actually finish the Giro d’Italia and the Tour de France coming into this year’s Vuelta. For Lombardi, it was never part of the plan.

“I never planned to race all three,” said Lombardi, 36. “The plan was to help Ivan Basso in the Giro. I finished the race strong and Ivan wanted me in the Tour as well. Now I am at the Vuelta to get in condition for the world championships, where I will help Alessandro Petacchi. If I finish the Vuelta, it will be the first time I’ve finished all three grand tours in one year.”

Beloki, meanwhile, is just happy to be back in the peloton. Still haunted by his horrific crash in the 2003 Tour, the three-time Tour podium man admitted he was close to retiring this year, but his good sensations in the Tour this year changed his mind.

“It’s true that after my problems in the spring I thought my career was over,” said Beloki, who abandoned the Giro. “As the Tour went on, I felt strong and once again felt like a bike racer, for the first time in two years. You’re still going to see a lot of Joseba Beloki.”

Where it stands
There were no major shakeups in the overall standings. Robert Heras padded his overall lead and kept the combined jersey while Liberty Seguros retained the lead in the team classification. Eladio Jimenez (Comunidad Valenciana) moved into the best climber's jersey.. He also kept the best-climber and combined jerseys while Liberty Seguros retained the lead in the team classification. Thor Hushovd (Crédit Agricole) also stays in the points jersey, with Erik Zabel (T-Mobile) moving into second. Sébastien Joly, a French rider on Crédit Agricole, did not finish, leaving 180 riders in the peloton.

Stage 8: Tarragona/Rambla Nova – Lloret de Mar, 189Km

What’s next
The 60th Vuelta a España continues Saturday with another stage tailor-made for the sprint specialists. The 189km eighth stage from Tarragona to Lloret de Mar features just one rated climb, the Cat. 3 Puerto del el Ordal at 65km. Otherwise, the mostly flat course pushes along the Mediterranean Coast, passing just to the northwest of Barcelona, before sweeping down to the vacation port of Lloret de Mar. The finish could be kind of tricky, with two hard right turns in the final kilometer.