Vuelta a España: Stage 7

Alessandro Petacchi put together a very smart sprint to take the seventh stage of the Vuelta.  He maneuvered perfectly to box in Mark Cavendish, and because the start of the sprint was such a narrow section of road Tyler Farrar and JJ Haedo had to come from pretty far back.  The key to all of this working so well was the placement of Andreas Stauff who essentially acted as a blocker for Petacchi against these top sprinters.  No change in the overall, but we finally have the points jersey competition taking hold with Mark Cavendish grabbing the jersey. 

General classification after stage 7

#	Rider Name (Country) Team	Result
1	Philippe Gilbert (Bel) Omega Pharma-Lotto	27:12:38
2	Igor Anton (Spa) Euskaltel-Euskadi	0:00:10
3	Joaquin Rodriguez (Spa) Team Katusha
4	Vincenzo Nibali (Ita) Liquigas-Doimo	0:00:12
5	Peter Velits (Svk) Team HTC-Columbia	0:00:16
6	Tejay Van Garderen (USA) Team HTC-Columbia	0:00:29
7	Xavier Tondo (Spa) Cervélo Test Team	0:00:49
8	Frank Schleck (Lux) Team Saxo Bank	0:00:50
9	Ruben Plaza (Spa) Caisse d’Epargne	0:00:54
10	Ezequiel Mosquera (Spa) Xacobeo Galicia	0:00:55

Points classification

#	Rider Name (Country) Team	Result
1	Mark Cavendish (GBr) Team HTC-Columbia	56	pts
2	Tyler Farrar (USA) Garmin-Transitions	53
3	Alessandro Petacchi (Ita) Lampre-Farnese Vini	51
4	Philippe Gilbert (Bel) Omega Pharma-Lotto	50
5	Igor Anton (Spa) Euskaltel-Euskadi	41