Jonas Vingegaard and Visma-Lease a Bike kept things under control on the summit finish to Cerler, refusing to be drawn into an early showdown on stage 7 of the Vuelta a España. The Danish favourite moved up from fifth to second overall, but once again avoided pushing for the stage win, insisting that his focus is firmly on the harder tests in the second and third weeks.
When the peloton hit the foot of the final climb, Visma set a steady tempo with Victor Campenaerts, Wilco Kelderman and Ben Turner. But rather than increase the pressure, the team eased, allowing UAE Team Emirates-XRG to take over with Marc Soler and João Almeida. The Portuguese rider launched several attacks inside the final 7km, yet Vingegaard marked him closely without contributing to the move, and the pair were eventually caught by the rest of the GC group.
Photo Credit: Getty“For sure if we’d wanted, we could have fought for the win, but we also wanted to save energy,” Vingegaard explained at the finish. “We are saving the team for the second and third week. There it will be hard enough, so we decided not to do that today.”
The stage win went to UAE teammate Juan Ayuso, bouncing back strongly after losing significant time the previous day. Almeida admitted he was frustrated by Vingegaard’s refusal to pull through on the climb but accepted the logic of the Dane’s decision. “I saw they [Visma] didn’t really want to go for a hard finish. I asked Marc to pull a bit to try, but I thought the climb would be a little bit harder to be honest,” he told Eurosport. “He didn’t really have to [pull], so I get it. But it is what it is. I think he doesn’t really pull a lot of times, right?”
Photo Credit: GettyAlmeida remains upbeat despite losing the chance to make gains. Sitting third overall, eight seconds behind Vingegaard and 2:41 off race leader Torstein Træen, he is eyeing the more demanding summit finishes to come in the second week. “I’ve been feeling good every day, so I think it’s a good sign, but I’m looking forward to the next hard ones,” he said.
Træen, who has impressed in the opening week, held onto the red jersey once again and goes into stage 8 with a 2:33 buffer over Vingegaard. Following Antonio Tiberi’s collapse on stage 7, Bahrain Victorious now have even more incentive to defend the Norwegian’s lead for as long as possible. For Vingegaard, that situation suits him perfectly as he continues to bide his time.
Main photo credit: Getty
