Jonas Vingegaard on the defensive from Almeida and UAE Team Emirates as Tour de France roles reverse at Vuelta a España – GC Analysis

The main Grand Tour players may be the same at the Vuelta a España as they were at the Tour de France – UAE Team Emirates-XRG and Visma-Lease a Bike – but both their tactical approaches to the two races couldn't be further apart, with the roles almost completely reversed in Spain compared to what they were in France.

Visma tried everything they possibly could to dethrone the infallible Tadej Pogačar at the Tour, so much so that they brought a 'Classics' squad in their own words to try and explode things in the punchy first week, knowing full well that a battle solely in the mountains would prove difficult to emerge from as the winner.

After the first ITT and once the mountains came, Pogačar dropped Visma's Jonas Vingegaard badly up Hautacam, forcing the Dane into even more attacking in the second and third week. This ultimately came to nothing but several second places and a second runner-up finish overall in succession; however, the kitchen sink was certainly thrown en route to Luchon-Superbagnères, Mont Ventoux and the Col de la Loze.

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With no Pogačar in Spain as planned, while he rests for the UCI Road World Championships, Vingegaard arrived as the heavy favourite – with the roles already reversed for Visma and UAE. Coinciding has been a move from all-out attack to staunch defence from Vingegaard in the seven stages the Vuelta has seen so far.

Yes, he's managed to win a stage – on day two to Limone Piemonte – but still that came from a response to a Giulio Ciccone (Lidl-Trek) burst and was only an uphill sprint, by no means a full mountain test. The first came on stage 6, but again, Visma decided to just shut up shop, and Vingegaard was only forced into action by Ciccone once again.

Partly this is because, with some bonus seconds and a great team time trial from Visma, despite being a man down, on day five, Vingegaard already had the virtual lead on GC. That's no disrespect to Torstein Træen (Bahrain-Victorious), who moved into red after a stellar day in the breakaway on stage 6, but he isn't expected to hold on up the hardest mountain days.

UAE and the rest will need to attack Vingegaard's, albeit slender, lead if they are to emerge victorious.

Vingegaard has explained the change in tactic as not wanting to burn through his support too quickly, but with a brutally tough Tour already in his legs this season, he's perhaps also cautious of running out of steam himself and suffering a bad day in the latter stages.

It's sensible, but far from the usually ruthless Vingegaard seen whenever Pogačar isn't at a race. With the iconic Angliru not far away now on stage 13, that will be the first real climb hard enough for Vingegaard to try and put a big gap between himself and UAE's leader João Almeida, who has tried to attack the Dane several times.

Stage 6 saw Almeida counter the aforementioned Ciccone move that Vingegaard followed, but came without joy, as did his big surge the day after with the Visma rider and the Italian once again able to follow. No one else was quite on the trio's level, giving an early sign of the potential podium come Madrid, but Vingegaard looked like he barely felt Almeida's pressure.

He hasn't yet got the lead like Pogačar did in France, but Vingegaard's maintained defence is provoking those in the wheels to try and attack him, and UAE are of course going to keep trying until they break him, or get broken themselves.

Stage hunting freedom for UAE's climbing support

Not only have the GC roles swapped, but those of UAE and Visma's teammates have as well. Vingegaard's support squad was allowed the freedom to attack throughout the Tour – with Simon Yates winning stage 10, and Wout van Aert having several chances on stages 11, 15 and 21, where he took a memorable victory in Paris.

The goal was to beat Pogačar, but several other ambitions remained in play for those who could have potentially helped. Visma weren't afraid to ensure they came away from the race with more than just potentially second on GC – which would have been the case had they not had the liberty.

UAE didn't completely close things down for their domestiques at the Tour, too, with Tim Wellens winning from the break ahead of Van Aert and others from the break into Carcassonne, but their efforts were primarily focused on protecting Pogačar and ensuring yellow was secure.

However, in Spain, UAE appear to be doing something closer resembling Visma's Tour method, seen in how the Vuelta has played out so far, not just by their hat-trick of stage wins in Figueres, Pal and Cerlers, but who won the latter two – Jay Vine and Juan Ayuso.

Ayuso was scheduled to be the co-leader for UAE alongside Almeida, with the numbers game an advantage they had over Vingegaard, but his GC capitulation on stage 6 meant this was no longer possible. However, 24 hours after he dropped out of the overall running, Ayuso was blasting his way up the road into a breakaway and eventually took a solo victory on the hardest mountain test of the race so far.

This coincided with Almeida trying to attack Vingegaard up the final climb, but with Vine and Ayuso both being in the break, he only really had Marc Soler with him for company when UAE started to accelerate in the peloton. It could be argued that Ayuso and Vine being in the peloton may have helped Almeida find separation, but ultimately, the climb may not have been hard enough, and it did result in another stage win.

Vine's win a day prior came in a similar fashion to that of Yates' on stage 10 of the Tour, admitting post-stage that he was originally attacking into the move on home roads to be an option as a satellite rider up the road, and a potential stage winner. In both cases, the break was let go by the other GC favourites' team – UAE at the Tour and Visma at the Vuelta – meaning Vine and Yates could go for the stage win.

UAE seem to be happy pushing for stage wins and ensuring other team goals, such as chasing the most pro wins in a season by a team – with now 76 of the 86 required already claimed – knowing full well that the big deciders on GC at the Vuelta will be the days to L'Angliru and Bola del Mundo.

For now, the stalemate remains with a vast difference in the eight seconds separating Vingegaard and Almeida after seven days, compared to the 1:17 deficit that the Dane had to close on Pogačar after the same amount of time at the Tour, with the roles almost completely swapped.

There's a lot of road between Aragon to Madrid, though, so the would-be attackers and defenders could yet switch sides a couple more times before the 21 stages and Grand Tour racing in 2025 is up.

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