Teams & Riders Team Jumbo-Visma

[Samu Cuenca]

My (very intuitive) take:
During the Tourmalet / Bejes stages, Vingegaard attacked mainly to win the stage. Especially in the Bejes stage, he got way more time than he thought he would get, because there was no chase at all for some time. Whether or not Vingegaard attacked before his turn, I don't know (see further). Vingegaard came to the Vuelta as back-up for Roglic, and to keep riding a bit (his calendar wasn't very full until the Tour), or his season would have been very short and without goals after July. So he didn't really have any fixed targets in this Vuelta (a GC win was no must), and his whole body language was one of being relaxed.
Roglic... he came to the Vuelta with way more ambition. He was the first GC guy. As he had already won the Giro, he could start without stress, and he was (and obviously is) in great shape. The problems started at Javalambre. Vingegaard could follow him (easily). Next, Vingegaard attacked in 2 stages and thus was intervening with Roglic' GC plans, and took away 2 opportunities from Roglic to attack / win a stage, on Tourmalet and Bejes. Roglic wanted to show his shape (he didn't train for nothing) by conquering Angliru. Vingegaard duly followed, but you already saw that Vingegaard was on crossroads: Vingegaard wanted to just follow Roglic and not force it, but he understood that this would as well end Kuss' hopes of the GC win.

So in the end, Vingegaard was the buffer that kept Roglic at bay, and he is such a good buffer that he easily could have won himself, but he showed everyone he didn't have to win and was happy with Kuss in GC lead. Roglic was more into the 'I want show everyone what they expect from me = race and win' mentality. But he also realizes that he can't shake Vingegaard, and that Vingegaard will thus win if Roglic attacks / drops Kuss again.

If Vingegaard and the team are to be believed, it was always the plan for him to go to the Vuelta, unless he was mentally/physically cooked after the Tour. Roglič on the other hand was only promised the Giro before the season started, and maybe they had still hoped to be able to persuade him to go to the Tour as a super duper domestique, but that didn't happen. Since he won the Giro, they couldn't exactly force him to stay at home. Then they probably also feared that Evenepoel and Ayuso could be so strong, that having two leaders would be their key to victory, especially when they couldn't be sure how Vingegaard would do with the Tour in his legs. But a situation in which one guy could end up losing time, because the other one got a gap to their opponents, was always going to be a possibility, but, as we know now, it turned out to not actually be a necessity for them to win the race.

 

[CyclistAbi]

Way to go JV. The only team that has convincingly beaten Rogla and Jonas this season.

Chapeau.

 

[Volderke]

Way to go JV. The only team that has convincingly beaten Rogla and Jonas this season.

Chapeau.

Don't forget the Policia.

 

[tobydawq]

Yeah, and instead of fighting or trying... Remco just gave up. I think it was a strategic move. He got his "hero" moment on the day after his "collapse". Then winning another stage, three in total, and the KOM. Remco is probably "happy" with that. He has been in the spotlight throughout the whole race. His persona and brand has probably only expanded. He can live another season on the "what if". He just had a "bad" day. Otherwhise he would have challenged! Him and the sport benefits from that narrative.

Lol.

And yes, that really is all I have to say to that.

 

[Salvarani]

Lol.

And yes, that really is all I have to say to that.

Nice talking to you as always.

 

[Dekker_Tifosi]

but lets be fair here, if vinge and roglic were free to ride its very likely Vinge would have smashed this. Only looked like to get better in the final week.

 

[Fantastico]

My (very intuitive) take:
During the Tourmalet / Bejes stages, Vingegaard attacked mainly to win the stage.

While I can see where you're coming from, I'm not truly convinced yet that this is true. If Vingegaard really would have wanted to win these stages without risking Kuss to lose the lead, he could have attacked way later on both stages. Attacking from as far out as he did always brings the risk of putting too much time into your teammate because of a disorganized chase.

So IMO, either he willingly tried to gain as much time as possible on everyone else or, at least, his strategy was very negligent considering the shrinking gap to Kuss.

 

[roundabout]

IMO on the Tourmalet it was a perfectly reasonable tactic for the worst placed leader on GC to attack first once the last helper finished his work.

What was surprising on the Tourmalet that it was Vingegaard who attacked again and not Roglic.

 

[tobydawq]

Nice talking to you as always.

Oh, come on. How can you think he was faking it? Like seriously?

 

[IndianCyclist]

Even with perfect race tactics they managed to make it a Rabofail🤦

 

[Salvarani]

Oh, come on. How can you think he was faking it? Like seriously?

Whats wrong with speculating? How can you not think it with the racing he has produced after the matter? Relax a bit instead of making snidy remarks.

 

[kn0s]

The time trial is a bit of thorn in this theory though, because Roglič was 50 seconds ahead of Vingegaard in GC before the team started meddling with their positions on the Tourmalet stage.

'Normally' without the team car orchestrating the race, Vingegaard would have to drop Rog in the mountains. But we never saw that fight.

Jonas was sick the first week, but you know this. He got better and then what? I know you didn't what him in the race but there he is. How should he race to satisfy you and not completely waste his time? He can't attack in any stage because that would be wrong, you know because Roglic might win it. But I guess Roglic can do his bonus seconds dance, when ever he wants? Now who is being held back?

I get that this has been a less than stellar Vuelta for Rog, I can respect that. With the first week in mind, I think Vingegaard would have his work cut out for him, if there was no Kuss then Roglic maybe(probably) wins this race, we can only guess.

Jonas on the other hand has had much more success. The experiment worked. He can win two GT's a year, without teammates in the way., because without Pogi he doesn't need to be 100%. I think this is one of the reasons that Roglic fans are raging and Jonas fans are -well relax dude... my take.

 

[Dekker_Tifosi]

long time posters here will remember Rabofail.

Who would've thought they'd cap off a season winning all GT's with different riders and on top of that have the complete podium in the Vuelta.

 

[Red Rick]

long time posters here will remember Rabofail.

Who would've thought they'd cap off a season winning all GT's with different riders and on top of that have the complete podium in the Vuelta.

Honestly the Rabofail meme is so old I don't even remember where it came from.

 

[topcat]

Great team performance. Chapeau Jumbo

 

[Lequack]

 

[RedheadDane]

Honestly the Rabofail meme is so old I don't even remember where it came from.

It came from a time when they were a bit less succesfull.

 

[Red Rick]

It's definitely suffering in that Niermann is funniest when losing his *** in the team car

 

[VeloMaster]

long time posters here will remember Rabofail.

Who would've thought they'd cap off a season winning all GT's with different riders and on top of that have the complete podium in the Vuelta.

... and still f*$% it up!

 

[CyclistAbi]

but lets be fair here, if vinge and roglic were free to ride its very likely Vinge would have smashed this. Only looked like to get better in the final week.

Meh.

 

[Hugh Januss]

... and still f*$% it up!

That's the Rabofail part.

 

[Izzyeviel]

long time posters here will remember Rabofail.

Who would've thought they'd cap off a season winning all GT's with different riders and on top of that have the complete podium in the Vuelta.

& who'd have thought they'd thus be providing the best feel good moment of the year?

 

[Izzyeviel]

Anyway, this is Kuss we're talking about. We all know what he's capable of putting the fail in Rabofail.

 

[VayaVayaVaya]

Quoting myself here to avoid retyping the same message from a different thread:

Well, there you have it. Halter, Kuss, and Vinge all confirmed that the team and riders agreed prior to Angliru that the three leaders would race it out. I see no reason not to believe them and no reason to say any of them did anything wrong, though I do think some decisions didn’t go Roglic way. After Angliru, they decided Kuss would win and Roglic agreed and let all sources is happy for Kuss even though he’s disappoint for himself.

"We had agreed that we would race for the red jersey, and it was clear that if the other two duel over it, then I also want to be involved. I would have liked that after the rest day, we had not fought for [the red jersey] anymore and had just ridden defensively. But we decided that we should fight for it, so then I was also put in a bit of a difficult situation, I think.

"I would have liked to see that it had been made earlier. It ends up with Sepp still winning – hopefully."
-Vingegaard

 

[Rob5091]

Interesting that 2 ex-pros, Sean Kelly & Philippa York, both think that things will change at Jumbo. Too many team leaders!