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UAE Lands Their First GC Blow | Vuelta a España Stage 5 Analysis & Stage 6 Preview | THEMOVE+
00:28:18
Johan Bruyneel and Spencer Martin break down UAE's ride to win the team time trial on the fifth stage of the Vuelta a España, which saw João Almeida and Juan Ayuso take back a small chunk of time on Visma-Lease a Bike's Jonas Vingegaard, who rode...
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- [00:00]
A
And yeah, and Jonas back in red. You know, yesterday we talked about it in yesterday's show, you know, on purpose he, he didn't want to hang on to the jersey. But now he's back into it. So knowing that now tomorrow we have a mountain stage, I don't think they're going to create a situation to give the jersey away again. So yeah, I mean I would say, you know, not, not, not a big, not a big event for, for the gc, but mental victory for, for uae.
- [00:40]
B
Everybody, welcome back to the Move Plus. I'm Spencer Martin. I'm here with Johan Berniel. We are breaking down stage five of the Vuelta Espana. A 24 kilometer team time trial won by Team UAE with Joao Mehta and Juana Yuso picking up eight seconds. Anvis Melissa Bike and Jonas Finegaard who finished second and little Trek coming in third with Julia Ciccone. Even though he lost, Jonas Vinegard takes the race lead back. He now leads Juan Uso by eight seconds as well as Almeida and Jacone. Nine seconds back. Former race leader David Gudu falling down to sixth place, 16 seconds back. And then after we break down this down, we will predict tomorrow's stage six and give our picks for the stage. Johan, just a few cliff notes before we get your takeaway of the day. Not a ton to say since this really was just time gap time bonus gaps essentially. But Ineos comes out really strong. Ghana's pulling. They're losing riders too fast. They, they end up finishing further back probably than they wanted. Almost 20 seconds back, Red Bull was flying through the opening time checks and then Matteo Sobrero opens, overlaps a wheel with the teammate, crashes. They end up finishing still pretty high up in fourth place, 12 seconds back. Potentially would have won it without that. So terrible for them. UAE just rips through every time check. But I, I was surprised almost at the their measured pace. Like for example they were second through the first time check, third through the second and then they ripped the. The, the third part of the course finish first. And then the surprise the day besides Israel per being forced to slow down due to protesters and then losing time. But then getting some time back from the organizers is vis Melissa Bike. They have a decent ride through the first time check. Terrible ride from the first to second time check. They did that section. I think they only were faster than four or five teams. Lotto oddly was the fastest team team in that section and then they're the fastest team in the final third of the race. Not enough though. They, they finished second eight Seconds back. But what was your take. Take away the day, Johan?
- [02:51]
A
Yeah, I mean it's you know, 24 kilometer time trial as you said, you know, with one technical part in it. Take off the day. I mean I think the, the teams we talked about yesterday, you know, uae Bisma, Little Track Ineos and Red Bull are the five first teams in, in the stage. Small differences. You know, I think yesterday I said, you know, we're going to go somewhere between 15 and 30 seconds of difference. It was less than that. Now if you see there's only 12 seconds between the top four, that's, that's not much. So basically, you know, it's, it's, it's a status quo in terms. It's not going to be a stage that will be decisive for the Vuelta overall win. But I think it's a very, it's a mental victory for uae. It's been a while since they've won. I mean, at least, I mean there's not that many team temporals anymore lately. But they're not super famous for winning Team time trials at least as, as far as I can remember.
- [04:03]
B
Two years ago is probably their biggest.
- [04:07]
A
Different. That's a different. It's basically launching your leader to the finish.
- [04:10]
B
Yeah, yeah.
- [04:11]
A
It's not the same.
- [04:15]
B
Visma.
- [04:16]
A
I think in the end, you know, in hindsight, you know, having to ride with seven riders instead of eight could probably cost them the victory in only eight seconds. But no, I think the strength of every team has been respected. One team who did better than I expected them to do, first example is Q 36.5. They only lost like 20 something seconds, which is not that much if you look at the composition of their team. So small differences and yeah, and Jonas back in red, you know, yesterday we talked about it in yesterday's show, you know that he, on purpose he, he didn't want to hang on to the jersey but now he's back into it. So knowing that now tomorrow we have a mountain stage, I don't think they're going to create a situation to give the jersey away again. So yeah, I mean I would say, you know, not, not, not a big, not a big event for, for the gc, but mental victory for, for uae.
- [05:30]
B
Yeah, I was going to say the thing that surprised me most about the stage was David Godu on Groupama FDJ only loses 24 seconds, Pidcock loses 22 and then Felis Goll on decathlon loses 17. So that's like those are not as big of a gaps as you would imagine. And then after this, there's only 27 kilometers of individual time trialing remaining, which means it's like, you know, what could you realistically pull out there? Like, not a lot. Which means we're probably going to have a really clustered tight GC battle, at least amongst the top, top guys through the rest of the race. Bad news for people watching. That could create boring racing. And then if it's the other way, if it's a blowout, that could also create boring racing. So I'm not super positive about the prospect of exciting racing. I don't think.
- [06:15]
A
Also, Spencer, also what. You know, another thing that, that, that stands out to me is the speed, you know, of the speed if, if as a team in today's team time trial you do 53.2km average speed, you know where that brings you? 53.2 average speed over.
- [06:33]
B
Oh, I bet that's last place, right?
- [06:35]
A
Last place, yeah. Last place. It's. The winner is 56.8. 56 point, yeah, 56.8. Almost 57 kilometers average over a 24 kilometer not straight course.
- [06:54]
B
Yeah, yeah.
- [06:55]
A
With corners. So that's quite something. That's impressive.
- [06:59]
B
I mean, Visma, on the, that second section of the course, they go 53.8 kilometers an hour and it's not, it's, it is technical. So that's very fast. And they're a, they're a full 3km an hour slower than Lotto on that same section, which is kind of unbelievable. I did. I mean, maybe it's just me projecting. I thought you could sense a little bit of the rustiness with team time trialing. You could tell it doesn't happen as much as it used to. Like, Sobrero was overlapping his teammates wheel. He was on the left side of its teammates wheel. But it was a right to left crosswind. And then people are pulling off like into the, into their teammates wheels. And then you saw Movistar go off the side of the road. It just, it. And I also wonder with these bikes and the speeds, like, are they even built for team time trials? Like, they're moving so fast. Margin, your margin for error is tiny.
- [07:50]
A
They are hard to handle. They are really hard to handle. That's, that's for sure. No, I think, I think the training, the training for this kind of effort here, I think the training has been in just in the days before the, before the Vuelta, you know, because the Vuelta being the last Grand Tour, teams typically deciding quite late on it's, it's not so much a fight for Selection anymore. It's like the selection of teams is the opposite. It's like, okay, who do we have left who actually can go? You know, whereas at the beginning of the season, especially for the Tour, who do we have to let out, leave out of the team? Because there's probably 12 or 13 riders here. It's okay, we have to find eight riders. We have five. So who are the other three that can actually do that? So the training for this kind of event is just basically with these eight riders in the two days before they get, I mean, in this case to Italy. When they were there, just after the.
- [08:56]
B
Travel to Torino, I was surprised by uae, the thing that I didn't notice before, or the first four stages of this race, like how they're obviously not big, like in width, but just how big that team is. Like, I saw him on the podium and like, you know, Joel Ometa is not that short. Like, he's 5 10, 5 11. And he was like much shorter than the rest of the team. Like these guys are trucks. And it showed today. I used to stall Solaris tall, Olivier I stole Jay Vine's taller than you'd think.
- [09:33]
A
Yeah. And then Groscharten is also not, not short.
- [09:35]
B
He's also no, like they're big, like pursuit. They look like a team of pursuiters, basically, which paid off today. And then my big question, and maybe we don't have the answer, is Visma kind of an odd pacing strategy. Start with seven riders. So a rider down, they're missing Axel Zingle. And the more I think about it, that type of rider can be good, even though they're not a good time trialist. Can be good. In the team time trial, it's about 430 second bursts and then you're resting. Like that actually is a valuable person to have. They don't have them, but they. So the times taken from the fourth rider, like UAE finished with fourth, four riders. You know, most teams with GC riders finish with four riders. Little track Q36.5. Visma finishes with five, which means they only dumped two riders along the route. Why, why do you think that happened? Like, what's the thought process behind that?
- [10:25]
A
I mean, because the fifth rider just didn't want to get dropped.
- [10:30]
B
The reason I, I think that's surprising if you don't follow team time trials is normally you would. You would have all your riders at the times not taken on like exhaust themselves and they go as hard as they can and then they, they drop off. So like they don't even need to finish with you. You should probably use their energies to, like, the maximum so you can get the fastest possible time. One only thing I could think of is, you know, were they worried about, oh, if the fourth rider slips out in the corner? Because it was kind of a technical final kilometer. Like, you have a fifth rider there to pick up their time. You don't have to wait for them. Or maybe they just miscalculated the pacing.
- [11:09]
A
No, I think it's safe. It's safe to have a fifth rider. Look, for example, look at uae. You know, there were four riders and Mark Solaire. You know, you never know what's going to happen in those last 500 meters if one of, one of those riders, like, you know, takes a corner in the wrong way and he loses the wheel, which they did.
- [11:29]
B
Yeah.
- [11:31]
A
So it's always good to have a spare guy there, you know, just in case something goes wrong. I think that's the thinking about it behind it, because, I mean, especially if it comes down to seconds. If Solaire, for example, I mean, listen, we know Solaire, how he writes, that's actually how he rides. He gets dropped, comebacks. So he even does it in the team time trial. But no, it's good to have another guy there, just not just to say, okay, four guys and everybody else just just, you know, goes their own rhythm at the end. I think I, I, I, I kind of like that to have a spare guy just in case something happens.
- [12:12]
B
And what do you, do you have any thoughts on ineos? Like, they go flying through, like, very fast through the first two time checks and then kind of struggle. Like, to me, it almost looked like Ghana hurt them. Is that, does that even make sense at that level?
- [12:27]
A
You know, what if you have a strong guy and somebody who's stronger than the rest and, you know, a machine like Ghana, it can be a disadvantage, especially, I mean, normally, I mean, things have changed, obviously, but I was always in favor of using your stronger guy just to do longer pulls, not to go faster. You know, the strong guy always had to just stay double the time than anybody else. If. Is that what INEOS didn't get right? If, you know, if you have a guy who's stronger and has a lot more power and you can kill, you can kill your teammates, especially the guy who's just behind you, or. No, the guy who's just in front of you. If he pulls off and then you have Ghana do a strong pull after two or three pulls, you know, time you had the moment, you have to pick in again in the back. And there's this strong guy having an acceleration that kills you.
- [13:30]
B
Yeah, yeah, like, that's the old saying, like longer, not stronger for the polls and a team time trial. And, you know, it's like, it kind of looked like it was working, but it looked like Ghana. Maybe this speed just pushed them over the edge a little bit. Also, Mark Solaire might have gotten gapped off a little bit because Juan Uso, my lord, he was absolutely ripping through that final kilometer. Like, I would say my big GC takeaway from the day is Almeida and I used to look pretty fit. Like this undercooked narrative. We'll find out tomorrow. But that I was really like, you could just tell looking at them like, oh, these guys are flying through this time trial. Maybe that doesn't translate to the mountains, but I especially Ayuso just looked really, really fast in this time draw.
- [14:16]
A
Yeah, no, they, you know, they, they, they did a great time drumming. Actually. If I look at the composition of.
- [14:23]
B
Their team, you know, I mean, it's.
- [14:26]
A
A pretty strong team, man.
- [14:27]
B
I mean, it's not, not a bad team.
- [14:30]
A
I would, I, I would say gross. Hartner is probably the, the weakest. I mean, obviously Dominic, but, you know, this guy does it all. But, you know, if you, if you look at Almeida, Solaire, Bjork, Ayuso, Oliveira and Jay Vine, I mean, those six, they can hammer. So, yeah, I think logic has been respected. The strongest. The team with the strongest guys won. Only question mark for me is if Visma has eight riders, it's. It would have been closer.
- [15:06]
B
Yeah, yeah. I mean, that's a huge disadvantage. Huge disadvantage. Not to have that. Mateo Jorgensen said, you know, they thought the wind was a little bit different. It affected their pacing. They probably held too much back, but they, they were cruising through the third half of that course on the way in. So he's not just making that up like he was. They were flying. They probably could have got a little faster with the eighth guy. It's closer. I think. As we said at the top of the show, though, the thing that surprised me the most was the lack of gaps. Like, we're now kind of back where we started again. Jonas loses his time bonus that he got on stage two. Very equal gc. We head into the mountains.
- [15:44]
A
I mean, you know, really small guy. You look eight seconds on, on Visma, then nine seconds, little track, Red Bull, 12 ineos. You just had the disappointing, disappointing time plot is only 16 seconds. That's not.
- [15:58]
B
Yeah, yeah.
- [15:59]
A
And then Movistar 17 seconds. Decathlon, 17 seconds. Q36.5, 22 seconds. Group Palmer only 24 seconds. I mean, those were. I mean, group arm. Okay, Group arm and decathlon, they've changed a lot. But, man, there's been. There's been times in history in the Tour that these teams would have lost and obviously team time prows were longer.
- [16:24]
B
They would have.
- [16:24]
A
They would lose two or three minutes.
- [16:26]
B
Yeah, easy.
- [16:28]
A
They actually remember, Spencer, that was. There was a year where I don't remember was 2003, 2004, probably the Tour de France changed the rules of the team time trial in the Tour because there was the Eames that lost so much time that. And they were long time trials also. It was 50, 60k. Uh, but they actually, they capped it. They said, you know, no team can lose more than five minutes. Like, if you lost seven minutes, you lost five.
- [17:01]
B
That's like the tour 11 year.
- [17:03]
A
And. And it was actually so stupid, that rule the second. So. So you have the team that wins. The second team cannot lose more than 30 seconds.
- [17:21]
B
What? Yeah.
- [17:23]
A
So if you, if you lose, if you lose by 20 seconds, you get 20 seconds, but if you lose by 40, it was 30.
- [17:30]
B
30. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
- [17:34]
A
So, yeah, that was back in the days.
- [17:38]
B
Well, now we're seeing maybe why these were removed from the Tour de France, because that's.
- [17:42]
A
Yeah. Well, now nowadays, I mean, these teams, all these teams, they have extreme, extraordinary equipment. The. The level of everybody is. I mean, to see. To see, for example, a team like Movie Star finishing only at 17 seconds. That's. That's quite the performance.
- [17:59]
B
They also went out, they had a guy go off the road and they still only finished 17 seconds back, like we should say Little Trek as well, was cruising through. And then I believe they had a rider crash into a barrier. So it just. I think that a lot of the margins here were like the team that had the cleanest run through one. I mean, as we said, also very, very strong. Any other GC takeaways, Johan, from the stage?
- [18:24]
A
No, I think everybody comes through this quite unscratched. No.
- [18:31]
B
Yeah, yeah, Pretty much unscathed now. I'm kind of. So Vinard, he loses eight seconds. He's now eight seconds in the lead. So he was 16 seconds ahead of those guys. He gained 12 seconds on them on stage two. And. Yeah, and yeah, and then the time bonus on stage three. So it really is, like, kind of funny that. Can you imagine the amount of work that went into this team time trial? And like, how aerodynamic people are? And then it's Essentially adding up to time bonuses at the end of uphill sprints.
- [19:02]
A
Yeah, yeah.
- [19:04]
B
Well, let's take a quick break and then we'll predict stage six, which is actually kind of a tricky stage to predict. All right, we're back. Tomorrow's stage six is 178km long. We just got to Spain. Today was the first stage in Spain. Now we're leaving Spain. We're going to Andorra Summit finish. It's. It's actually a pretty hard stage. I mean, it would be hard to ride if we all went out and rode this. We would think, wow, this is brutal. These guys will cruise through it. But it starts on a Cat 3 climb, 11K long, 4%. That's going to be very, very good for a breakaway. Then it goes into a 1k long climb, 24 kilometers long. Sorry, a 14 first category climb, 24 kilometers long, 3 1/2 percent. That's another good one for a breakaway. And then they get into Andorra. There's a sprint point at the start of the second to last climb. Bonus seconds at the top of the second to last climb, which is 4k long at 8%. They descend down, they go through the. It's like the big city of Andorra. Andorra La Viet.
- [20:00]
A
How do you say.
- [20:01]
B
And that's the biggest town, I believe. Capital city of Andorra, perhaps.
- [20:06]
A
Yeah, I mean, Andorra is. Spencer is Andorra. There's. There's a few little towns around it like, you know, like San Julia and I mean, but Andorra city is. It's Andorra. It's just a city.
- [20:22]
B
And then it's a 10k long climb, 6 1/2% up to the finish. But that actually is going to be interesting with the time bonus at the top of the 8% climb. I'll read the odds and then we'll get your take on who's going to win. Jonas Vinegard, the heavy favorite at plus 175. Julia Ciccone. Plus 900. David Gadoo. Plus 1600. Jay Vine. Plus 1800. Lorenzo Fortunato. Plus 2200. Eager Bernal. Plus 2500. Pablo Castrilo, the hero of last year's race. Plus 2800. Eddie Dunbar. Plus 3300. Travel made up plus 3300. And then Felix G. Plus 4000. Juana Uso plus 4000. Kind of some odd guys down there again. If you want to bet and you don't really know how to or you just want the best price price, check out next bets@n bets.com bet outcomes. You will be served up exactly where you can bet where you live and the best signup bonuses. But Johan, do you think this is breakaway or gc? And who do you think wins?
- [21:21]
A
It's difficult to predict the breakaway. I did, I mean I did remember that, that I went up there once in, in Paul in the Tour de France. So I did some research and we did this same climb finishing climbing in 1993. Spencer, how long is that ago? It's 30 years. Almost 32. Yeah, it's a long time ago. 32 years ago. Yeah. I looked at the results. There was not that big. I mean the differences are not. I remember Oliveira Lincoln, who became my teammate later on. He was on my, he won the stage from a breakaway and then 150 behind there was Tony Romminger, Bjorna Reiss, Jaskula Indura and Mejia. Then a few seconds after Capuchi, let's say the top, the top 15, 20 of the stage were all within 20 seconds. This was a hard stage by the way we talked about it, we talked about it before. So if I look at the information about this stage, it was crazy. It was 231 kilometers with 6,000 meters of elevation.
- [22:40]
B
It's absurd.
- [22:41]
A
At stage 15 at the Tour a.
- [22:43]
B
World championship circuit right there.
- [22:44]
A
Yeah, but after such, I mean obviously you can't compare to the France Vuelta Espana. This was, you know, in the last week. But there's going to be differences, but not huge differences. Although I have to say though that this, I do remember this other climb, what is it called? The second last climb. I remember that climb. We usually did that before in either Vuelta Catalunya or Semana Catalana. It's only 4k at 8%.
- [23:16]
B
It's pretty hard.
- [23:17]
A
It's pretty hard. And then you know, you basically go down and then straight up to pal. So yeah, I mean I think it's the GC guy, Spencer. I'm gonna go for Jonas Wingard, win the stage. 175, positive odds. I mean he is the best climber of this race. So I think that that's a safe bet.
- [23:45]
B
Yeah, I, I, I think it's really difficult between break and gc. I just wonder if it's too early in this race for breaks yet because the GC team still have so much break dry powder. 170km long stage, not overly difficult. Like if Feesma really wants to, they can control this and like maybe little trek helps them. As weird as that would be since they have a GC rider. But Chicone wants to win the stage. No, I'm going to go. I'm actually, I'm making this up on the spot right here. I'm going to pick David Gou plus 1600 fast finish in very good shape. Is really. I think this comes down to who beat. Who beats Jonas Vagard in an uphill finish. And if it was harder, maybe nobody. But this is not like. And I, I always hate when people do this like 10k long at six and a half percent. That's not that hard. But for these purposes, for these guys, like, it will be a fast climb and I think go do speed can help.
- [24:45]
A
Spencer. It's hard. Yeah. I mean, you know, the climb. Spencer, it's the overall, it's all six and a half percent, but it's. It's pretty, pretty hard. It's a proper climb. A proper climb. So I don't think people will cruise on that climb. It's. It's. There's going to be a big battle. We're going to see Vingard and I also. And Almeida and go do. Those are the guys we're going to see. There's no hiding there.
- [25:19]
B
No, it. In terms of wild cards, I mean, we're. This is tough because we could. You could go for breakaway guys. I think that's a little risky. Obvious breakaway candidates would be Jay Vine, Lorenzo Fortunato. I just am not convinced it's going to be break. I. I think that's. You can be ridden too hard in the peloton. But I'm gonna go. I cannot believe this guy is down here. Juana, you so plus 4,000. He is a fast finisher.
- [25:45]
A
And.
- [25:45]
B
And when he's on form, he is a good climber. Oh, just this year he had Mult summit finish wins like Ter Toreno Adriatico that was solo. But he beats Primos Roglich at Catalunya on an uphill finish. Like the guy can finish off climbs. I'm gonna go him just because he's so far down there at plus 4,000. I thought he looked pretty fit today.
- [26:06]
A
Yeah. Yeah. That's a good one. That's a good one. Well, my wild card is going to be very similar. I'm gonna go for Joel also +4000. I don't know why he is down there. Must. They're probably thinking, okay, he. He's still recovering from his crash, but he looked good. Okay. Also today, his interview afterwards, he sounded pretty confident. And Almeida on a climb like this, especially if it's a climb where this is a typical climb where You. You can pace yourself. He's. He's shown already in the past that he can win those. So at +4000, I think he's an ideal wild card for tomorrow stage. Yeah.
- [26:52]
B
He was beaten Jonas Vindergaard in an uphill finish this year. Yeah. And at. What was that? Algarve. And I mean, the thing I don't understand is just for example, Marco, Frigo, very good rider, but he's on the same odds as Almeida and ISO. Like, well, who has the better chance of winning the stage? Marco, Frigo or Ayuso or Ra? Two of the strongest riders in this race. So I don't really get. I don't get it. But we're taking it because we. We're confused why they're so far down there. Anything else, Johan, before you take off?
- [27:26]
A
No, I think that's it for me.
- [27:29]
B
All right, we'll be back tomorrow to break down this uphill finish. And the. Another thing I, I meant to say that I forgot to say is even if, like, you're like, oh, it's going to be breakaway because they want to give away the jersey. Well, stage seven, the stage will preview tomorrow is even harder than this, so they probably just get the jersey back anyway. So I think. I think Jonas has the jersey. If he's going to win this race, there's no giving it away anymore. I think we are where we are with the gc, but we'll be back to break down the stage. The first, I guess, true Summit finish. How many times can we say that at this race? It will be stage 13, we're saying, oh, the first true Summit finishes today. But I am excited to watch to see how this plays out. Okay, Spencer, thanks.
- [28:10]
A
All right, bye.