Visma shut down Fredrik Dversnes breakaway hopes after Giro heroics: ‘They won't let me go’

The Uno-X Mobility rider revealed to Eurosport that Visma had made it perfectly clear he would not be allowed into the day’s breakaway. Dversnes famously caught the sprinters out in the Milan stage of the Giro d’Italia earlier this season, and the Dutch team were not prepared to give him another opportunity to pull off the same trick.

“It would be fantastic to repeat that, but Visma have already made it pretty clear to me that they won’t let me get into the breakaway, so unfortunately it will be difficult,” Dversnes said.

There was little ambiguity about where the message had come from.

“They told me that,” the Norwegian confirmed. “It is definitely a compliment. But it does not make it any more fun for me. That is cycling and tactics, and you simply have to respect it.”

With Dversnes effectively kept out of the move, Uno-X eventually put their hopes in Magnus Cort. And for a moment in Sevilla, it looked as though that decision might pay off.

Cort finished third after a powerful Uno-X lead out launched him into the final sprint, behind stage winner Matthew Brennan and Jordi Meeus. For a rider who freely admits he is not a pure sprinter, it was about as close to the team’s plan as he could have hoped for.

“That was pretty amazing to be part of,” Cort said afterwards. “The boys can be very, very proud of what they did today.”

Uno-X had deliberately stayed out of the work for much of the stage. With faster finishers in the field, there was little reason for them to spend energy controlling the race. They waited until the finale before throwing everything behind Cort.

“I am not a pure born sprinter, so I am not as fast as some of the other guys,” Cort explained. “That also means we don’t take responsibility during the day, but we still have a lot of horsepower.”

“The plan was clear today. We just wanted to wait and wait and wait, and then hit it with a big fucking train that we’ve got.”

And for a few seconds, it looked as though that train might deliver more than a podium place. Cort was the first rider to launch his sprint and briefly found himself with clear road ahead.

“For maybe the first 100 metres when I opened up, I didn’t see anyone,” he said with a laugh.

Then the real sprinters arrived. “Brennan came flying past me, and then on the line a lot of guys came. I actually had no idea where I finished. I think third?”

Third was indeed the result, and one Cort was quick to credit to the riders around him.

“For sure I couldn’t have done it without the full team backing me up.”

Uno-X left Sevilla without the win, but showed again that they have more than one way to contest a stage.

Dversnes, meanwhile, never got the freedom he wanted. After Milan, Visma were not prepared to make the same mistake twice.