Vuelta a España Vuelta a España 2023, stage 16: Liencres Playa - Bejes, 120.1k

[Pippo_San]

I want to see the HATRED tomorrow or this shitshow better soon be over.

 

[Zoetemelk-fan]

Today seemed to be more of the tactics that bought Vindegaard into the top three. Only today, UAE's favorites all sat on Vingo's attack. When Roglic went he was aware of Kuss's position and dialed back to keep him in the GC picture, IMO. That Vingo had 50+ seconds before he set out was reminiscent of Jona's last stage win where Kuss cut the gap to 30 seconds and Roglic took back almost the same amount. The difference today was Kuss not having what it took and Vindegaard following through with a similar effort. It doesn't really project what may happen tomorrow except he looks spent after each of these stage wins.
JV can't control everything their opponents do; particularly when they do almost nothing.

Regarding the small Rogla crack I was not thinking of his jump, since yes it was clear he wantet to review Kuss' situation behind. It was moments after when other guys went bananas. Where Kuss also seemed in (tiny) trouble. But maybe I'm reading too much into that situation.

And just to clarify, I'm not concluding on raw numbers of today's result.
Jonas clearly got a huge and quite unexpected gap mainly due to all the hesitation show behind him. If it really was, one should measure an estimate on how much the other GC guys could take on Finn Fischer-Black, and no doubt Jonas' gap would've been lot less and the GC situation quite different.

 

[ChewbaccaDefense]

projecting much?​

It's literally your first post on the forum. Chapeau!

 

[Eddy Evenepoel]

Interested in what? Calling Vingo a liar?🙄

That’s a very interesting take, even by your standards…

The question you ask is very easy to answer Interested in knowing how much Vingegaard and Van Hooydonk has been riding together.

I found that interesting because of what GroupDK said, not anything Vingegaard have said. You probably should’ve seen I literally quoted GroupDK and the part
with «and with him 90% of the time» that is highly relevant with then checking how much they rode together.

I hope you just completely misunderstood me, and not that you wanted to twist it so I’m implying something I literally stated I’m not tying to imply.

 

[Danskebjerge]

When Vingegaard attacked and no one reacted to it, I was about to say something about a deal between the teams to let Jumbo-Visma win so that they could dedicate the victory to their teammate. But then I thought - hey, this isn't even a joke, it's a realistic scenario, in the light of what has happened earlier in this Vuelta.

 

[Unchained]

Velo d'Orc winner, Jonas Vingegaard.

I find all of this sort of funny, it's all based on Kuss being an emotional weakling.. What if in the bus it was always the plan for Jonas or Roglic to ultimately win and allow Sepp as many rock star days as he can hang with.. No matter what happens overall, Sepp Kuss is shining like a diamond.. backers like Cervelo and Jumbo Visma have press and promotion materials for years and as if it couldn't get any better, solo across the line victories in UK and Spain. People are saying it's tough to cheer for Jonas because he is some mono minded TDF specialist.. Cyclings wet blanket.. the guy is absolutely drilling it, and talk about balance on accident or intentional, rolled home for the win, youngster still in red, team looks unified and laser focused on victory.. And if Kuss pulls it off, kudos..but if he doesn't he still won.

 

[Miha81]

Then Kuss goes like "I ain't mad at cha! Got nothin' but love for ya. Do ya thing, boy."

Joni, will you dedicate win for me on my birthday?

 

[ChewbaccaDefense]

In reality, this has been quite a boring race...I am not super invested in who wins, I just see Jonas' actons as those of an a$$hole who demands team loyalty from everyone else, but gives out very little if any. Like I've said, he is a hard figure to cheer for regardless, and he hasn't done anything to improve that in my eyes, so I can offer the Pog fans this: You will enjoy my posts much more next July, and anytime he races against Skeletor.

Pog fans: Mea culpa, you were right all along, about everything.

 

[Jagartrott]

Apart from the flustercluck that is 'team' UAE in this Vuelta, some mention also needs to go to Movistar, who, in their home race are performing very poorly as a team. I have the feeling that Mas is probably 'best of the rest' (i.e. apart from the JV trident), but there is no-one there to do some proper pacing for him when the group has thinned. No team UAE and no-show Movistar + Evenepoel out for GC = free reign for JV. Whether there is some internal struggles now at JV for who gets the overall is meaningless for the other teams, because it will be a JV that wins this, discord or not.

 

[Rob5091]

So apparently the plan was for Roglic to win. Vingegaard attacks, then everyone follows, then Roglic attacks 500m from the line to win. Sounds logical, but everyone else was like ...nah. "I'm saving my energy for tomorrow!"

 

[Samamba]

Lulu finished and has no fractures. Great, would've been horrible if had to end his career this way.
Hope he can get back on the bike tomorrow, I'm sure he would go to serious pain to finish this Vuelta.

 

[Escarabajo]

I just saw some pieces from the last climb again and I have to tell you UAE is really very bad team. No way they are riding on any coaching orders. This is probably the worse I have seen from them. Ayuso is the only one with any remote chance of anything in this race and this is how UAE races? just pace Ayuso and be done with it. Ride as a team. This is embarrassing to the team.

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lPIOqUT3Les

 

[Armchair cyclist]

I had sort of suspected that the tactic of Jumbo is that whoever is 3rd has licence to go for the stage/time gap (increase the gap over 4th), and the other 2 are to stick around Mas/Ayuso/anyone else considered relevant.

So tomorrow is Roglic's to attack.

 

[Rechtschreibfehler]

Just watched the last bit of the stage, they attacked Kuss the motherf***! (edit lol I found a bad word that won't get censored.)

I thought this would happen (that's why I voted Vingegaard in the poll) but I hate it. I mean the *** even Rogla attacked him for mere seconds.

Probably they planned to win it with Vingegaard when they decided to let him ride. But the way it is happening is just.... *** them.

 

[TrekCyclist]

Seems Vingo gets criticized for almost the same Pog gets celebrated for (trying to win everything he is in)...
(whether he actually IS trying to win Vuetla, we will see tomorrom imho)

 

[nightowl]

Seems Vingo gets criticized for almost the same Pog gets celebrated for (trying to win everything he is in)...
(whether he actually IS trying to win Vuetla, we will see tomorrom imho)

Pretty sure he’s getting criticized for attacking his teammate who’s been nothing but a loyal domestique in the past, potentially robbing him of a once-in-a-lifetime chance to win a GT, not for “trying to win.” Even then there’s quite a few people who are loving it and getting the popcorn out lol

 

[Danskebjerge]

In reality, this has been quite a boring race...I am not super invested in who wins, I just see Jonas' actons as those of an a$$hole who demands team loyalty from everyone else, but gives out very little if any. Like I've said, he is a hard figure to cheer for regardless, and he hasn't done anything to improve that in my eyes, so I can offer the Pog fans this: You will enjoy my posts much more next July, and anytime he races against Skeletor.

Pog fans: Mea culpa, you were right all along, about everything.

I'm not going to go into your very passionate criticism of Vingegaard. I agree that the race is quite predictable, and that's all the more annoying after the scandals in the first week of the race.

However, I do recognize that although it would be nice to see the always loyal domestique Kuss win the GC, it's not that easy for a team to navigate in if they also want to dominate the race as much as possible. If the strongest team in a stage race went "okay, our third best rider is in the lead, let's do everything we can to protect him from now on", then that could potentially turn the race into a disaster if that rider were to disappoint later on. The safest thing to do would be to make sure that there is at least three teammates in contention for the GC win, and if that's the goal, then it would be hard to achieve without allowing them to attack if they have the legs. Also, stage wins means a lot to any team, and I doubt that Kuss could have won today's stage, just to name an example.

 

[Roku]

I just saw some pieces from the last climb again and I have to tell you UAE is really very bad team. No way they are riding on any coaching orders. This is probably the worse I have seen from them. Ayuso is the only one with any remote chance of anything in this race and this is how UAE races? just pace Ayuso and be done with it. Ride as a team. This is embarrassing to the team.

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lPIOqUT3Les

Team Soler will only ride for Pogacar. I think he has only ever done domestique duties for him and Valverde.

Team Almeida will only yo-yo his way up to a Top10 / Top5

They are sadly missing team Bennett, who is heading to Israel in order to score his lame Top-10 again.

Interestingly enough they managed to turn Team Majka into one of the best mountain domestiques of the peloton.

 

[Rackham]

Seems Vingo gets criticized for almost the same Pog gets celebrated for (trying to win everything he is in)...
(whether he actually IS trying to win Vuetla, we will see tomorrom imho)

I'd hope that the most neutral fans can recognize that the time gap from Vingegaard's attack today was greatly inflated by the inaction of the chase behind him, thus making it a perfect killer blow to Kuss.

Kuss found himself without a teammate to pull behind an attacking rider, he couldn't jump immediately himself (because he's not allowed to drag other riders over to a teammate, i.e. basic rules of cycling say so) & the gap grew way beyond what their actual respective levels on the climb should have allowed for because no one else (like UAE or Movistar) chased either.

 

[Samu Cuenca]

Pretty sure he’s getting criticized for attacking his teammate who’s been nothing but a loyal domestique in the past, potentially robbing him of a once-in-a-lifetime chance to win a GT, not for “trying to win.” Even then there’s quite a few people who are loving it and getting the popcorn out lol

He wasn't attacking his teammate though. He was attacking to try and win the stage for his friend, and he didn't ride full gas in the final metres. He didn't know what was actually happening behind him, and I doubt he was expecting to be within 30 seconds of Kuss after the stage.

The team is in a great situation now, where in case Kuss cracks, they most likely still get the win. The only one who's really suffered from this is Roglič. And in case he wouldn't have been able/allowed to gain time on Kuss, I doubt he cares much about whether he finishes second or third in the end.

 

[GroupDK]

Seems Nathan Van Hooydonck is out of coma.. - and the family & Jumbo Visma looks forward to informing their teammate about the win they got in his honor today, and how they managed to keep the breakaway tight so they could go for the stage.
and what better thing to forward to Nathan ..your team was 100% dedicated to muster the stage today, and a stage that certainly not was ideal for Vingegaard with a single short 2* climb..
Sure' when your heart stops pumping and your death and crash with your pregnant wife, and needs to be revived.. secondaries like "sport", usually don't matter, but these aint average guys... they have a huge winner mentality and will certainly lighten the mood, now they managed to fulfill the plan today and it will feel even better, with the positive news, about Nathan, is out of the coma.

 

[ChewbaccaDefense]

I'm not going to go into your very passionate criticism of Vingegaard. I agree that the race is quite predictable, and that's all the more annoying after the scandals in the first week of the race.

However, I do recognize that although it would be nice to see the always loyal domestique Kuss win the GC, it's not that easy for a team to navigate in if they also want to dominate the race as much as possible. If the strongest team in a stage race went "okay, our third best rider is in the lead, let's do everything we can to protect him from now on", then that could potentially turn the race into a disaster if that rider were to disappoint later on. The safest thing to do would be to make sure that there is at least three teammates in contention for the GC win, and if that's the goal, then it would be hard to achieve without allowing them to attack if they have the legs. Also, stage wins means a lot to any team, and I doubt that Kuss could have won today's stage, just to name an example.

Reasonable response, cheers!

 

[nightowl]

He wasn't attacking his teammates though. He was attacking to win the stage for his friend, and he didn't ride full gas in the final metres. He didn't know what was actually happening behind him, and I doubt he was expecting to be within 30 seconds of Kuss after the stage.

The team is in a great situation now, where in case Kuss cracks, they most likely still get the win. The only one who's really suffered from this is Roglič.

Oh I agree I don’t think it was his intention at all, but the optics of it makes it look like a stab in the back and that’s why it’s being criticized.

 

[ManicJack]

He wasn't attacking his teammate though. He was attacking to try and win the stage for his friend, and he didn't ride full gas in the final metres.

Yeah, it definitely looked like he eased up quite a bit towards the end. He could have easily put more time into the chasing riders.

 

[GroupDK]

post

Cyclist Nathan Van Hooydonck is awake again after being in an artificial coma as a result of a car accident.
His condition is not critical, according to his team, Jumbo-Visma, on the social platform X.

The cycling team also writes that the strong Belgian does not suffer from injuries caused by the car accident.
- Further medical examinations must now establish why Nathan felt bad when he drove his car, says Jumbo-Visma.

Several Belgian media, including Het Laatste Nieuws and Het Nieuwsblad, reported earlier on Tuesday the accident that happened in the town of Kalmthout north of Antwerp.
According to the media, Van Hooydonck, who had his pregnant girlfriend in the passenger seat, was waiting at a traffic light, where he should have felt unwell.

This caused him to inadvertently step on the accelerator, after which his car hit five other cars on the other side of the intersection before coming to a stop.

Later in the day, Jumbo-Visma confirmed that Nathan Van Hooydonck was in an artificial coma.

During the Tour de France for the past two years, the Belgian has been an important assistant rider for Jonas Vingegaard, who won both editions of the world's biggest cycling race.
Jonas Vingegaard and the other Jumbo-Visma riders got the news about their teammate before Tuesday's stage, which the Danish star ended up winning.