Remco Evenepoel has been preparing for the Vuelta a España all season, but he made a deliberate choice not to reconnoitre any of the mountain passes on the route. “Sometimes it can work against you if you have too much knowledge and know what to expect,” he said before stage 8. “You might get scared.”
The fearsome Colláu Fancuaya made its Vuelta debut on Saturday afternoon and Evenepoel had, of course, dutifully scouted the Asturian climb on Veloviewer beforehand. He knew all about its daunting statistics, but he didn’t appear to be unduly intimidated when he set his QuickStep-AlphaVinyl squad to work on the lower slopes of the ascent.
Evenepoel showed even fewer inhibitions when the narrow road pitched into a double-digit gradient in the final 4km. The red jersey, unsurprisingly, figured that attack was his best form of defence, and he set about whittling down the group of favourites with a bout of sustained pacesetting.
The low cloud swirling around the mountainside caused the television footage to cut out, meaning that the information crackling through Evenepoel’s earpiece from the QuickStep-AlphaVinyl team car was composed largely of guesswork. He decided to press on regardless, flying blind through the mist.
By the time live pictures were restored, only three men – Primož Roglič (Jumbo-Visma), Enric Mas (Movistar) and Carlos Rodriguez (Ineos Grenadiers) – were still with him.
“You know, in my radio they tried to explain me a bit, but I think they were a bit behind. In one moment, they said I was with 14 guys, but we there were only four or five or us, so I didn’t really know what the situation was,” Evenepoel said.
“In the last kilometre, I saw it was Primož, Enric and Carlos. Then at the finish, I looked at the results with my soigneur and I saw that only Enric and Primož were still on the wheel at the finish line, so it was a perfect day.”
There were shades of Tadej Pogačar’s effervescence in the final metres, when Evenepoel lifted himself from the saddle to outsprint Mas and Roglič for fifth on the stage, 1:20 behind winner Jay Vine (Alpecin-Deceuninck), but the effort was not purely for show. By then, the Belgian knew that every pedal stroke was putting time into the rest of his rivals.
In the overall standings, Evenepoel remains 28 seconds clear of Mas and 1:01 ahead of Roglič, but the Ineos duo of Rodriguez and Tao Geoghegan Hart are now the only other riders who lie within two minutes of his red jersey.
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