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Vuelta a España Vuelta a España 2025, Stage 6: Olot – Pal, 170.3k

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Oldman

Jun 19, 2009
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Cookster15 said:
Nice ride by Jay Vine, he was strong to hold that gap. Well deserved.

Not sure why Almeida is criticised for not dropping back to help Ayuso though? Almeida is now clear leader for UAE and is still in contention for a podium. But not if he sacrificed minutes to help an ailing Ayuso. That was Marc Soler’s job.
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UAE showed what can happen after a TTT to riders forced to go that fast protecting their GC. The hangover in the hamstrings can be brutal. Almeida did what he should have and some other out-of-GC guys could've gone back to console Ayuso. That's all anyone could do, for sure. Separately I saw Jonas checking his computer several times when Lidltrek was pushing the pace. He was either seeing the possibility of having to back off or what would be Ciccone's launch pace. Turned out to be the latter.
At this point it's a bit of a conundrum for JV: let Bahrain defend (how long would that be?), lay back and see if Lidltrek imiatates JV Tour strategy for Guilio until they can't and Bahrain fails simultaneously? UAE is in a good position if Almeida improves a bit more. He does need to calm down for awhile, though.
 
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Unchained

Sep 5, 2016
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Valv.Piti said:
Its not when your leader is so far off and is just straight up sitting up. Ayuso did that today, so of course you don't call Soler, your only rider in the front group apart from Almeida, down to 'pace' for literally zero reason. Ayuso had Grossschartner for moral support and thats more than he deserved today.

This is cycling 101 guys. Come on.
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Ayuso should have had someone next to him all the time taking about childhood memories, pretty flowers, love life, favorite recipes, yoga classes.. After this and the Giro all the rumors of Ayuso leaving UAE just look that much more likely. Funny you mentioned Felix Grossschartner..he had a similar situation when he got humiliated in Austria!! He was designated leader but on day two he couldn't keep wheel of Del Toro and UAE did a complete rewrite of the script, ditched Felix all together and put all resources to Del Toro win. Ayuso is toast
 
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Netserk

Netserk

Apr 30, 2011
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Is it on rtve that you can select from which camera to see the race? Did either Ciccone or Vingegaard stop cooperating when the director switched to the break for more than a minute?
 
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KZD

KZD

Feb 21, 2019
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Great day for UAE, Vine winning, Almeida doing well and Ayuso out of GC.

Really big day for Træen taking the red jersey.
 
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Lequack

Lequack

Jul 10, 2014
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CyclistAbi

May 29, 2019
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Strong win by Vine. At the end most of the GC contenders where there, around Jonas. Jonas did look rather comfy still Almeida had no real issue in closing the gap down by himself, maybe he lost some energy needlessly at the finish sprinting but OK. Ayuso likely aiming for a stage win and is OK working for Almeida, that IMHO is admirable. I guess key factor here will be will UAE back Almeida or not. If they do then anything is possible.
 
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Danskebjerge

Jul 4, 2009
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Valv.Piti said:
Its not when your leader is so far off and is just straight up sitting up.
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I'm sure old school folks like Bjarne Riis would have wanted three or four riders to go down and "pull" for the out of form GC contender. We've seen that many times - and zero times have we seen it work. Not on a finishing climb. There is close to no draft in it, and the chance of a guy dropping out of the peloton as number 40 and coming back with avengence, is 0.001 percent. So why waste stronger team mates' energy on that.

Besides, Ayuso had - according to himself - already told the team that he wasn't feeling great.
 
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fenns

fenns

May 16, 2015
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It looked to me like Jonas covered Ciccone's attack - then they both eased off and Almeida came back with some others.
 
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CyclistAbi

May 29, 2019
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fenns said:
It's not clear what help his team can be - they all disappeared on the final climb which wasn't even that hard.
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Yeah but if Almeida wouldn't be able to hold his own on this climb then he would IMHO not have any real chance of winning GC. There will be stages on where he will need his team and if the team will be there he can win it. If not then Jonas will likely beat him as he mostly has to follow anyway and poking Almeida where is your team? All i see is yellow and a dash of red.
 
fenns

fenns

May 16, 2015
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CyclistAbi said:
Yeah but if Almeida wouldn't be able to hold his own on this climb then he would IMHO not have any real chance of winning GC. There will be stages on where he will need his team and if the team will be there he can win it. If not then Jonas will likely beat him as he mostly has to follow anyway and poking Almeida where is your team? All i see is yellow and a dash of red.
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Yes Jonas has got his best riders from the Tour. Almeida has got the ones who weren't good enough for France.
 
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CyclistAbi

May 29, 2019
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fenns said:
Yes Jonas has got his best riders from the Tour. Almeida has got the ones who weren't good enough for France.
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Jonas indeed has a team around him that can be considered Tour worthy. As for UAE i feel that is a rather good team, that is if they will actually work for team leader. I am keeping an eye on Hindley and his team too, unfortunately Sobrero already with a nasty crash, still lets see on how they work as a team. Somehow RBH is still struggling with this, considering the names involved.
 
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Tonton

Tonton

May 17, 2013
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Gratemans said:
Multiple reasons. But mostly that leaked conversation where he talked smack about Demare, his teammate at the time.
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If someone puts microphones non-stop all around you, they may catch something too...Nono was saying the same thing: "it is my team"...one was recorded...
 
Cookster15

Cookster15

Moderator
May 14, 2011
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fenns said:
Yes Jonas has got his best riders from the Tour. Almeida has got the ones who weren't good enough for France.
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Maybe so but those Visma support riders who are backing up from the Tour are not named Jonas Vingegaard and cannot be assumed to be strong in the 2nd successive Grand Tour of this year. We will see how good are Visma's domestiques in the 3rd week. Then again, maybe more likely this race is over before then.

I also hope Hindley can finally show something like his 2022 Giro level. We have been waiting for three years to see that again.
 
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O

Oldman

Jun 19, 2009
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CyclistAbi said:
Strong win by Vine. At the end most of the GC contenders where there, around Jonas. Jonas did look rather comfy still Almeida had no real issue in closing the gap down by himself, maybe he lost some energy needlessly at the finish sprinting but OK. Ayuso likely aiming for a stage win and is OK working for Almeida, that IMHO is admirable. I guess key factor here will be will UAE back Almeida or not. If they do then anything is possible.
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What other choice does UAE have? Ayuso made the decision for them.
 
Rob5091

Rob5091

Apr 8, 2023
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So apparently Pogi was planned for the Vuelta, and then got all fed up at the Tour, so Ayuso was called up unprepared instead?
 
tobydawq

tobydawq

Nov 16, 2013
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Danskebjerge said:
One of the good things about this forum is that it convinces me that I'm not as over-critical about things as I feared. Some cycling fans are much more negative.
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I'd say you're pretty over-critical at times.

Just to balance things a bit ;)
 
tobydawq

tobydawq

Nov 16, 2013
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fenns said:
It looked to me like Jonas covered Ciccone's attack - then they both eased off and Almeida came back with some others.
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It didn't look like that at all. From what we saw, Vingegaard continued to pace quite hard, and then we didn't see the favourites for more than a minute, and then they had been reeled back in.

I think it's a bit odd to not have seen a single post suggesting that Vingegaard might not be as flying as we thought he would be.
 
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