Back to Spain leader Jonas Vingegaard was left searching for positives after a failure to attack even once on the Angliru stage was followed by Surprise Defeat by Arch-Rival João Almeida at the summit.
Awesome remains on top of the overall classification in the Vuelta and after staying glued to Almeida’s back wheel all the way up the climbon GC he has distanced all of his rivals bar one.
Second at the summit, just as he was in 2023 behind then-teammate Primoz Roglič, Vingegaard said that he would have liked to have won after all the work his squad did on the long approach to the three final climbs of the day – the Mozqueta, Cordal and above all the Angliru.
“But I could also follow João, and a lot of the other guys are now at a bigger distance, so that makes it easier for the coming days. João was super-strong, though, I did what I could but he deserved to win, so I’m a bit disappointed.”
“Now I have to focus more on João than other guys, so to be honest, at the end of the day, that’s something to be happy about,” he admitted.
Visma teammate Sepp Kuss was dropped by Almeida on the Angliru with four kilometres to go. “João was very strong, he put down a hellishly hard pace,” the climbing ace said afterwards.
More climbing ahead
Vingegaard’s advantage remains a comparatively slender 46 seconds on Almeida, and seeing which rider might gain the upper hand on the second, very different, stage in the mountains of Asturias on Saturday will be fascinating to watch.
Stage 14 is 134 kilometres long compared to the 202 kilometres on Friday. While the category 1 Puertu de San Llaurienzu, the second to last climb, is a much more formidable ascent than those which preceded the Angliru, the final summit finish of Farrapona is a much more draggy, less challenging affair that Friday’s monster finale.
“We did it also in 2020, I was pulling there if I remember it rightly,” Vingegaard said, “although I can’t remember too much about it.
“On a climb like today [Friday]you don’t get anything much out of being on the wheels. But on the next ones, drafting matters more, so I guess it will be easier to stay on the wheels, too.”
The Farrapona was actually one of Vingegaard’s most impressive early ascents as a climber, working on the front for kilometre after kilometre on the lower slopes in order to keep teammate and race leader Roglič’s rivals under control.
This time round, with Roglič not even present on the Vuelta, all the attention will be focussed on how Vingegaard and Almeida manage what is increasingly looking like a two-rider fight for the Vuelta.
Time-wise, and in terms of experience as a Grand Tour leader, Vingegaard remains a much greater favourite than Almeida. But after he failed to follow Tom Pidcock (Q36.5 Pro Cycling) on the final slopes of the Alto del Pike last Wednesday in Bilbao, and then did not deliver the much-expected all-out attack on the Angliru, the stakes may well be much higher than he would have liked at this point in the race.
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