'Not the best day' - Vingegaard in race management mode at Vuelta

This isn’t the Jonas Vingegaard of July but, for now at least, he’s still doing just enough to win the Vuelta a España. The Dane added another two seconds to his lead over João Almeida on the stage 17 summit finish on the Alto de El Morredero, but he acknowledged that he had struggled on the windswept ascent.

When Visma | Lease a Bike laid down a brisk tempo on the approach the climb, one wondered if this was the day Vingegaard would definitively bend the Vuelta to his will. The expectation rose still further when Almeida was briefly distanced on the lower slopes of the ascent.

As the climb progressed, however, it became increasingly apparent that Vingegaard had reverted to a race management strategy rather than a race crushing one. He was content to mark Almeida once Giulio Pellizzari (Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe) launched his stage-winning attack a little over 3km from the top.

Vingegaard outsprinted Almeida for fourth place on the stage, and he extended his overall lead to 50 seconds. There is still a summit finish to come at Bola del Mundo on Saturday, but the more pressing concern is the potentially race-defining time trial in Valladolid on stage 18.

“It was not my very best day today but sometimes it’s like that,” Vingegaard confessed in his press conference after the stage. “Not losing any time on a bad day is quite ok, and now I’m looking forward to tomorrow. At the moment I’m focusing on the time trial. 

“Of course, I hoped to make a difference today, but I think I can be happy with how it went. Now I’ll focus on doing the best time trial and then we’ll see if it’s enough.”

For the past four years, Vingegaard has generally operated on a higher level to everyone in the peloton bar his perennial rival Tadej Pogacar, but he has shown distinct signs of fatigue in this, his second Grand Tour in the space of ten weeks, and there was relative parity in the red jersey group on the Alto de El Morredero.

“To be honest, the five or six of us were equal today,” Vingegaard told Eurosport. “I didn’t have the best day today. I survived, and I guess that’s what you need to do. On the days you don’t feel 100%, if you can get through without losing time, that’s a good day.”

It remains to be seen how Vingegaard will fare against Almeida in the 27.2km time trial around Valladolid on Thursday, but he will hope for better than his insipid display on a near-identical test in the same city two years ago. On that occasion, Vingegaard finished 10th in the stage 10 time trial, and he conceded 28 seconds in 25.8km to Almeida.

“To be honest, that was an awful time trial for me back then,” Vingegaard smiled. “Hopefully, I can do a good time trial tomorrow. It’s a flat time trial and we will see.”

Vingegaard was unable to warm down on his time trial bike atop the Alto de El Morredero as the machine had already been transported ahead to Valladolid to be prepared for the crucial time trial. 

Authorities in Valladolid, meanwhile, have been preparing for more protests against Israel-Premier Tech’s presence in the race amid Israel’s ongoing invasion of Gaza. It was reported earlier this week that some 450 police and Guardia Civil officers will be deployed along the route in a bid to prevent human rights protestors from disrupting the race.

After a Palestine solidarity demonstration forced the shortening of stage 16 of the Vuelta, the peloton voted to stop racing in the event of further disruption on Wednesday. Vingegaard admitted that he hadn’t necessarily agreed with that course of action, but he stressed the importance of the peloton respecting the wishes of the majority.

“I think in cycling in the last few years, we’ve had one major problem and that is that as teams and riders we haven’t been able to stand together,” Vingegaard said. “Obviously, I can have my opinion, but I think it’s most important, not just now but also in the past and in the future, that we stand together in situations like this and that when the majority makes the decision, everybody stands by it. After that, I can agree or not agree, but in my opinion, we should stand together.”