The return to Spain has had several protests from pro-Palestinian organizations, with raids from protesters to the middle of the road-and some with danger to cyclists. This Wednesday there was more and the organization of the race decided to cancel the final part of step 11, not attributing the victory to anyone.
The times were taken three kilometers from the goal and João Almeida lost ground. Thomas Pidcock attacked in the last climb and left everyone sitting – until Vingegaard. The Danish was the one that resisted the most and eventually joined the Briton until the end of the stage. Almeida had no capacity to respond and appeared about ten seconds later.
There has been a lot of discussion about what help Portuguese can have from colleagues and there has been some clarification. Jay Vine, who has been attacking, had no legs to be useful when the road tilted. Juan Ayuso, who also attacked a lot, tried anything at this stage, but soon “arranged”. And Marc Soler, who was on the run without any nexus, did not help anything either.
In short, Almeida was alone in the most important part of the stage, surrounded by Vingegaard and three friends of the Danish.
Escape soler
The step had seven mountain counts-it was the generally called “Rompe-Pern” step, with continuous effort of rising and descending, even if without very long and hard climbing. It was not evident that it was a day for the fight between the main favorites, who will have Angliru in two days, but Almeida eventually wanted to take something from this day in the Basque country and chose to repeat attacks of parca probability of success, the profile of the stage and having the opponent team so united.
But it was Emirates who has been prominent from the beginning. First, because Juan Ayuso wanted to attack – and still had a hole, having been behind for a while. What help would give?
Then, because Marc Soler also launched himself in a lone attack. The Spaniard has proven several times that he likes offensive efforts than collective work and launched himself to attack-UAE could have the illusion that he could, at the worst hypotheses, be useful to Almeida at the end of the day as a “satellite corridor”, but with such a lonely effort this would be highly unlikely.
It was therefore a totally illogical tactic of UAE – perhaps that is why the adventure was a few kilometers later. The problem is that Soler seemed to have emptied the “tank” in this attempt and was behind shortly after. End of work.
About 30 kilometers from the goal we had the answer about Ayuso: zero helps. The only one capable of being with Almeida was Jay Vine, but he was not the strength to harden the race – not even to follow in the main group at the hardest time.
Almeida was already alone, while Vingegaard had three colleagues in the main group – who had ten cyclists. The Portuguese itself attacked 26 kilometers from the goal and took Vingegaard in the Roda, a phase of the race where Buitrago escape was over – there was, therefore, possible struggle for the stage and bonuses among the main favorites to triumph. Or maybe not.
By demonstrations in the goal, the organization of the race decided to take the times three kilometers from the end and not attribute victory from the stage to anyone, when Pidcock attacked – first no response to anyone, then with Vingegaard response.
For this Thursday, a less mountainous step is designed, but with a first category climb-but no finish high.
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