'The first test' - Vingegaard expects GC fight as Vuelta enters high mountains

His rivals from UAE Team Emirates-XRG won the day, but Jonas Vingegaard is back in the maillot rojo of the Vuelta a España after the team time trial in Figueres on stage 5. His Visma | Lease a Bike squad looked to be struggling through the opening half of the course, but they finished strongly to place second on the stage and put Vingegaard back into red, eight seconds clear of the UAE duo of Juan Ayuso and João Almeida.

“We did a super good job, we went very fast, but we were a bit slower in the middle part,” Vingegaard said in the press conference truck afterwards. “Maybe we could have gone faster in middle part, that’s definitely something to look at. But everybody went super strong and we can be happy with how we performed today.”

Visma were only 10th quickest at the second time check, some 13 seconds down on UAE, and it looked at that point as though Ayuso would move into red. Vingegaard et al improved considerably in the closing stretch, however, and they would place second, eight seconds down on UAE.

“We lost eight seconds today but I’m still eight seconds in front,” said Vingegaard, who retakes the red jersey he had conceded to David Gaudu (Groupama-FDJ) on Tuesday.

The Dane also resumed the various duties of the race leader on Wednesday evening, including the podium ceremony, anti-doping control and press conference, though he shrugged off the idea that it was a burden.

“Every day in a leader’s jersey is super nice, so I’m happy to be back in the red jersey,” he said. “Of course, you have to go through the mixed zone every day, but that’s a part of it and you just have to get used to it.”

Vingegaard wore the yellow jersey for long stretches en route to overall victory at the Tour de France in 2022 and 2023, of course, though he conceded that he had a more relaxed attitude to the pressures of race leadership at this point in his career. After his life-threatening crash at last year’s Itzulia Basque Country, he added, he had arrived mentally exhausted at the Tour.

“I guess this year in general I’ve been more relaxed than ever,” he said. “I think I was also pretty relaxed in the Tour. If I compare it with last year in the Tour, when I came back from injury, I was already on my limit mentally coming into the Tour.”

Vingegaard has made a fast start to this Vuelta, winning on stage 2 at Limone Piemonte despite crashing in the finale and then placing third in the explosive finale at Ceres a day later. He acknowledged, however, that stage 6 to Pal will mark a new phase in the race.

The Vuelta’s entry into the Pyrenees will see the peloton tackle the climbs of Collada de Toses and Alto la Comella ahead of the category 1 haul to Pal in Andorra.

“It’s hard to tell [my form] because we haven’t done really super hard stages, so I guess tomorrow will be the first test of that,” said Vingegaard. “Tomorrow is the first properly hard stage, so we have to be ready for the fight. I definitely expect it to be a really hard day tomorrow, my rivals will try to attack. The last four or five kilometres are really hard. I definitely expect a fight between the GC guys for sure.”