Following the abandon of Primož Roglič from the Vuelta a España, race leader Remco Evenepoel has confirmed that second-placed Enric Mas is the rival he will track most closely from here to Madrid.
After pulling back some time on Evenepoel on the summit finishes last weekend to sit 2:01 off the red jersey, Mas made another late attack on stage 17 close to the summit of Monasterio de Tentudía.
Evenepoel had already described Mas and Miguel Ángel López (Astana Qazaqstan) as the strongest riders on the Sierra Nevada stage last Sunday. And easily clamping down Mas here, Evenepoel said he would make a priority of keeping the Spaniard under control in the Vuelta's final days.
Furthermore, it has not escaped Evenepoel’s attention that, in the closing stages of any Grand Tour, riders are increasingly beginning to try to defend their GC placings. As overall leader, he said he needed to “play the game” of trying to use those races within a race to his advantage.
Asked directly if he will be aiming to follow Mas’ back wheel as closely as possible, the QuickStep-Alpha Vinyl rider said: “I will try that for as long and as much as possible. If I can reach Madrid on his wheel that would be perfect, but unfortunately, it’s not that easy.”
On the plus side, in what was the first seriously hilly test of the third week at Tentudía, Evenepoel confirmed he felt much better than the days where he had been closer to the limit, namely during the Vuelta's weekend of mountain stages in Andalusia.
Certainly, his confident display of strength in managing the attacks Mas and João Almeida (UAE Team Emirates) on the final climb bore witness to his solid form. He promptly chased down the former, but he understood he could grant Almeida – seven minutes back on GC – some leeway.
“The Movistar guys started out really hard at the bottom of the climb, so you know the pace will then slow down a bit, and that’s where López took over with his teammate,” Evenepoel said in the mixed zone afterwards.
“Then when they started to slow down, Mas attacked, and I saw the two of us were ahead. I actually didn’t want to go to the front, but Mas was slowing down so fast that I accidentally did.
“Then I just tried to slow it down, counter his attacks, let the others come back. When Almeida came back it was perfect for me.
“There is always this fight for GC spots behind [the leader] as well. Lopez started to pace because he doesn’t want Almeida to go too far. That’s a game I need to play in the coming days.”
Stage 17 saw a flat-out first hour of racing until the break formed, and in the finale, Movistar applied pressure on the early approaches to the winding, and very uneven, 10km ascent to Monasterio de Tentudía. Evenepoel said that he needed his team to work in the bunch at the start and on the run-in to ensure things did not got out of hand, and on each occasion, they responded well.
“I think the team did very well, and Remi [Cavagna] was on the front all day again,” Evenepoel said. “It was a pretty fast start again today. I think we did 48km or something in the first hour so it’s not slowing down in the third week at all.”
Of the hilly days of this Vuelta’s final week, however, Monasterio de Tentudía was unquestionably the easiest. Mas and the others may yet challenge Evenepoel more seriously on the much tougher slopes of El Piornal on Thursday and in the Sierras de Madrid on Saturday.
But after Roglič's untimely exit, and with the race another day closer to the Paseo de Castellana celebrations on Sunday, the Vuelta GC tide is flowing strongly in the Evenepoel's favour again.
