Vuelta a España leader Jonas Vingegaard has recognised that arch-rivals UAE Team Emirates-XRG are stacking up an exceptionally high number of stage wins in the race, with the latest coming from Marc Soler - but on Saturday's summit finish of the Farrapona, at least, if Vingegaard is losing any sleep over UAE's runaway stage success story, he certainly didn't show it.
On the defensive for much of the final ascent of the Farrapona as UAE and then Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe laid down a ferocious pace, Vingegaard himself managed to pull off a small but symbolically important, outsprinting his closest rival overall, João Almeida (UAE Team Emirates-XRG), on the line.
Finishing ahead of the Portuguese racer enabled him to scrape back two seconds thanks to a time bonus, but more significantly, it means he ends the second key block of mountain racing in the Vuelta in a slightly better place than the rider pushing him hardest on GC.
"UAE is really on a roll, seven victories is really impressive," Vingegaard, now 48 seconds ahead of Almeida, and likely to maintain that advantage on Sunday's rolling transition stage, told reporters.
"I can only respect what they do, so congratulations to them."
"But we are only focussed on what we are doing, and we have two stage wins and the leader's jersey. So we can be happy with what we have, too. I'm in a good place."
Vingegaard was more guarded when asked if he was not attacking in the mountains of Asturias because he couldn't find that extra acceleration to drop Almeida, as was expected, or if it formed part of a strategy.
"We also choose the days when we want to attack," he insisted. "Yesterday [Friday] João set a really good pace, and he deserved to win."
On the Farrapona, though, the stage had all the feel of a draw on points, with neither UAE nor Visma able to gain the upper hand. Vingegaard put UAE's relative passivity - not to mention their letting Marc Soler go up the road for a win - down to a strong headwind, while Visma themselves, he said, were never interested in trying to shape the stage in their favour.
"Because of the headwind, it was hard to make a difference. I can be happy with the bonus seconds I got that I didn't expect," Vingegaard said.
"We didn't want to play it for the stage win, Dylan [van Baarle] and Wilco [Kelderman] had done a lot of work yesterday [Friday], so we wanted them to do a bit less today, and in general, that plan went really well.
"Yesterday Joāo was very strong, and also today. But I think he also realised with the headwind it would be hard to make a difference, so he didn't try anything."
The absence of attacking by Almeida on the Farrapona - as had been expected after his blistering ride on the Angliru - made for a somewhat flat finale to the GC battle, but the fact remains that Vingegaard, as yet, has not turned in one of the devastating climbing performances for which he is so rightly famous.
Instead, Almeida's ability to make all of the running on Friday and beating Vingegaard on the race's most prestigious summit finish, meant it looked as if his form was beginning to flatten while Almeida was getting stronger, one reporter suggested.
However, Vingegaard again skirted the question saying "That's the thing about Almeida, he never gets worse and he's always good in the third week.
"So all next week, I'm expecting a big fight for the red jersey."
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