By this point in the Back to Spain and with seven stage wins out of a possible 14 so far, reporting that UAE Team Emirates-XRG have taken yet another victory to their palmarès barely feels newsworthy.
But in the case of Marc Soler‘s latest triumph for UAE at the summit finish of La Farrapona, it later emerged that neither rider nor team had planned for it to happen.
When Soler first made it into the break of the day and then moved away solo 16km from the line at La Farrapona, the expectation was that he would be waiting for team leader João Almeida to bridge across.
But instead, after UAE had shredded the peloton on the previous, ultra-hard Alto de San Llaurienzu ascent, and then put both Mikkel Bjerg and Felix Großschartner to work on the front of the main group, Almeida’s attack never materialised.
Instead, Soler, having only made it into the break by accident, he later revealed, was able to continue to the line alone. In the process, he both gained sporting revenge on losing the same summit finish in 2020 to David Gaudu (Groupama-FDJ) – who finished more than 21 minutes down on Saturday – and also racked up 2025 Vuelta stage win number seven for UAE Team Emirates-XRG as a birthday present for his wife, Judit.
Almeida’s attack never came, though, and instead, Soler was able to go for a victory on the same climb where he had been conclusively outduelled by Gaudu back in 2020 – but this time, being able to use his prior knowledge of La Farrapona to his advantage,
“Finally, I was taking it steady in case João attacked, but I always had enough of an advantage to get it.
As for whether he’d expected Almeida to be so close to Vingegaard overall – just 48 seconds separate the two – after Asturias, Soler said, “That’s a difficult question to answer.”
“I knew he’d be good, although he’d had that crash in the Tour, so it was hard to know how good. 48 seconds may not seem like a lot, but between two top riders like João and Jonas, it can be an important margin. So we’ll have to see how the last week plays out, and hopefully he’ll be able to get into red.”
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