Surrounded by challengers, but dynamic Jonas Vingegaard is on top of the Vuelta a España – Philippa York analysis

On the morning of the first Vuelta a España rest day, the scoring in the UAE Team Emirates-XRG vs Visma–Lease a Bike contest doesn’t look too bad. Three stage wins for the former against two for their great rivals.

UAE lead the mountains and team classifications, but Visma have had two days in the red jersey of the race leader. In the general classification, Jonas Vingegaard has won two stages, but only has a 38-second advantage over João Almeida after three of the race's ten mountain-top finishes.

On that basis, it seems perfectly reasonable to surmise that the GC battle is going to be closer than expected.

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However, the pre-race suggestion that Vingegaard may only seize his chances on the steeper slopes and just follow on the other hilly days has been discarded, as proven by his victories on stage 2 and 9. The new, dynamic Vingegaard has turned up in Spain, and despite being surrounded by worthy challengers, he's quite simply blown them out of the water when they least expected it.

The two big days in Andorra didn’t present any opportunities so he stayed calm, followed Almeida and lulled UAE and everyone else into a false sense of security. Then, when everyone thought the climb to Valdezcaray on stage 9 would see a GC stalemate, he pounced and left UAE wondering what happened.

Almeida, as he is prone to, wasn't paying enough attention and wasn’t where he needed to be – directly on the Dane’s back wheel. The result was he spent the whole climb chasing and though only Tom Pidcock (Q36.5) could stay with him, in his head he would have been lamenting that he was caught out.

Giulio Ciccone (Lidl-Trek) lasted a kilometre in Vingegaard’s slipstream before he had to let go, but if it had been Almeida who was in the right place, at the right time, the result could have been very different. He was strong enough to keep the gap reasonable when chasing, therefore, on such a fast climb he likely would have been fine on Vingegaard’s wheel. He probably wouldn’t have won the sprint to the line, though. The new dynamic Vingegaard is pretty fast.

Not all perfect at UAE Team Emirates

The one positive for Almeida is that at least the question of who is the team leader at UAE Team Emirates has been resolved fairly early in the race.

Juan Ayuso’s participation in that internal contest may have been an entirely media construct or just a line told to the viewers, and it's now clear he's not targeting the GC, but I wouldn't be surprised to see the speculation and conversation surrounding the young Spaniard continue for a while yet.

Almeida is definitely the team's leader, but the role that Ayuso has now assumed isn't necessarily going to be of any help to the Portuguese rider, and he wasn't on stage 9, with Almeida alone early on the climb.

With Jay Vine and Ayuso seeking to be part of the early break on the hilly stages, they risk being of less use if something happens in the GC race behind. They may have both won a stage by doing so, and though it could be an advantage to have riders in front if Vingegaard is distanced, it's also less helpful if the situation is reversed. Visma have already hinted that they’ve recognised the possible scenarios and need Sepp Kuss prepared to cover those UAE tactics from now on.

I can't help thinking that the Ayuso situation is one that UAE can't let continue without it causing some heated words to be exchanged pretty soon. If he can do a very impressive ride to win a mountain stage then the question is why is he allowed to then sit up at the bottom of the climbs when he could be of help to Almeida? It doesn't make any sense for a rider of his calibre to do that because he has the talent to be in the GC group, and when they are racing someone like Vingegaard, the more support Almeida has the better.

Maybe the rumours of him wanting to leave are more than just that but in any case, it wouldn't do his reputation any harm to become the rider that helped win a Grand Tour for a teammate.

An open fight for the podium – for now

There are several riders suffering in the GC group but still believing that a podium spot can be theirs. I don’t see any clear favourite emerging for the third place if we assume that Vingegaard and Almeida are a level above.

Lidl-Trek obviously thought that Ciccone could play but he got badly burned on stage 9 so he'll have to be more defensive going forward. The team might also want to rethink the amount of work they are doing to keep Mads Pedersen in the green jersey because it's costing a lot of energy they will need later.

It's a similar situation for Felix Gall (Decathlon AG2R La Mondiale) and Tom Pidcock as they head into the steep mountains. Both have ridden well until now, being well placed and well supported, however the Angliru on stage 13 is going to be where they discover just where they are in the hierarchy.

With less than a minute and a half separating sixth Ciccone from Kuss in 16th, anything could still happen, though the smaller riders like Lorenzo Fortunato of XDS Astana or Red Bull’s pairing of Jai Hindley and Giulio Pellizzari ought to fare better on the longer, harder climbs.

Egan Bernal (Ineos Grenadiers) and Matteo Jorgenson (Visma-Lease a Bike) stand out as the type of riders that might be able to take advantage of any tactical moments to move up the top 10, and both are in good shape at this point in the race. Ineos have already met their objective by winning a stage with Ben Turner so that pressure is lifted and Jorgenson is the card that Visma can play to put UAE on the back foot.

The unexpected happenings have to have been David Gaudu beating Jasper Philipsen on stage 3, even though it was uphill, and Bahrain Victorious leading the race with Torstein Træen. Visma may have been happy to let the race lead go but Træen hasn't collapsed on the first challenge, and held onto red for another day on stage 9.

Sadly, the return of Mikel Landa (Soudal-QuickStep) to the competition sphere hasn’t been entirely happy but there's still a final-week revival to hope for.

Two guys I’ll be watching are Junior Lecerf of Soudal-QuickStep and Matthew Riccitello of Israel PremierTech, both little climbers and very similar styles. The Angliru will be a good test for them.

The day on stage 13 with the fearsome slopes of the Angliru will be the key moment of the second week, and anything could still happen, but there is one thing for sure already. Jonas Vingegaard is going to hurt everyone.

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