Juan Ayuso is ninth in GC through stage 5, the highest-ranked rider on UAE Team Emirates at Vuelta a España Management for UAE Team Emirates predict Remco Evenepoel’s announcement earlier this week that he may well ‘loan out’ the Vuelta a España leader’s jersey on stage 6 will spark cycling’s equivalent of a feeding frenzy.
When the Soudal-QuickStep rider and defending Vuelta champion regained la roja on stage 3 in Andorra on Monday, he said he would try to lose it as soon as possible to try to save his team energy in defending it at all costs. With two sprint stages following, he pointed to Thursday’s mountainous stage, which includes a summit finish at Javalambre, as the first big realistic opportunity.
The consequence of announcing his willingness to hand over the red jersey to a non-GC threat will be “total war” en route to the summit finish, UAE Team Emirates manager Joxean Fernandez Matxin told Cyclingnews .
“It’s like throwing a ball up in the air and everybody wants to jump up to grab it,” Matxin said with a grin.
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“Sixty, 70 kilometres can go by in a flash, it’s total war. There could be 70 or […]
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