Three months after his surprise non-participation in the Tour de France, promising young Spanish racer Carlos Rodríguez is on a personal quest to find out why, as he puts it, "my legs aren't responding as they should," at the Vuelta a España.
But as he told a small group of reporters including Cyclingnews at the start of stage 5, the answer isn't proving easy to find.
In what is proving to be a difficult year for the Netcompany-Ineos racer, following his non-selection for the Tour, a race where he took fifth overall in 2023 and seventh in 2024, Rodríguez was redirected towards the Vuelta a España. He'd finished a hugely promising sixth overall in his debut in his home Grand Tour back in 2022, where he and Juan Ayuso (Lidl-Trek) were widely viewed as the spearheads of a new wave of Spanish racers.
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Fast forward to 2026 and the same race, and the rider from Granada began without GC expectations, looking instead to support Oscar Only. His own participation began well when he rode a promising-looking opening time trial in Monaco, finishing 31st, less than 30 seconds behind stage winner Tadej Pogačar (UAE Team Emirates-XRG).
However, come the crunch mountain stage to Andorra, Rodriguez lost over 22 minutes, having been definitively dropped well before the mid-way point. The reasons, he said Wednesday morning, are proving complicated to understand, but he'll keep persevering and stay as optimistic as possible.
"It wasn't the day I expected," Rodríguez said. "At the top of the Envalira"- the first climb of the day - "my legs weren't responding well, and from then on I took it easy to the finish. It didn't make any sense to go on pushing myself.
"I'll just have to see how my legs react during the Vuelta. For some reason, when the key moment arrives, they're just not responding. But we're going on doing things well and we're still focussed."
Rodríguez said that in training, things looked as if they would work out well. However, when the crunch moment arrived in the race, "for some reason my legs are not responding as they should.
"We have to go on trying to work out what the reason could be to find an explanation. Until then, we'll just go on being optimistic and trying to be sure it doesn't affect us.
"I want to go on helping Oscar, who's doing really well and showing that too. So we'll see how my legs evolve from here on, and we'll try and do things as well as possible."
Born in Almuñecar in southern Spain - the coastal town where stage 13 starts - Rodríguez said he expected the heat to help him improve. And he's feeling particularly motivated by the crunch stage 20 through Sierra Nevada, too. He's hoping, too, that he'll have found a reason for his lack of good form in his only Grand Tour of 2026, but for now, it remains a mystery.
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