Look at the ranking. It is not a joke. It's not upside down, even though it looks like it. Welcome to chaos. Lenny Martínez, French, the youngest in the Vuelta, is the leader, at 20 years and 20 days. But the important and curious thing comes later. Sepp Kuss is almost three minutes ahead. But it is that Marc Soler is third with two minutes less than the favourites. Landa is also ahead, one minute he takes out all the greats. And David de la Cruz is another of those who leads the stars by a few seconds, where Roglic and Vingegaard were not satisfied with being spectators of their team's festival and attacked Evenepoel, from whom they took half a minute.
The race is crazy. The stage became phrenopathic on the way to the Javalambre Astrophysical Observatory. Jumbo-Visma became aggressive from the start and shook the standings from top to bottom. None of the other teams had the strength to control the breakaway in which ten of the top 25 overall put the big favorites in check. The American climber Kuss, the team's cover from Barcelona to do the Giro-Tour-Vuelta triplet, won the stage and everyone already knows that he will have to be unseated in a very mountainous round.
The escapees were not cyclists to give them seven minutes but Van Baarle, Tratnik and Valter rode to make life difficult for the rest and lead Kuss to the final climb on a plate. The ghost of Giovanetti flew over the roads of Teruel. All the alarms went off.
In the directors' cars there were nerves and sweat. El Soudal, who in the morning was out due to a stomach virus from Bagioli, could not even in his best dreams cut the distance by himself. So Movistar and Ineos offered him his help. "There are dangerous people", said Txente García Acosta to justify that they pulled back, defending the interests of Enric Mas, when they had Einer Rubio and Lazkano ahead. Less balances had to do the Ineos. “There has been a good one. It is not the best situation for us”, agreed Xabi Zandio.
Only then, with Arcas and Eviti, from the telephone team, and with Heiduk, Fraile and even Ganna, from the British, collaborating with Serry and Pedersen, could they begin to get closer. They started the last port with 4 minutes. Little more was taken from a climber with a devilish change of pace like Kuss, who still doesn't want to look at Madrid despite his beautiful advantage. "No no. For me, winning a stage is already incredible. I'm not a generals man. I have to enjoy the moment”, confessed the winner, exultant, who even high-fived with the public before crossing the finish line.
“We have won the stage and we have taken time. That was the plan”, Roglic stuck out his chest in goal. “Perfect day”, summed up Vingegaard.
With 4 km to go, the Slovenian and the Dane, hand in hand, saw that Evenepoel was not going well and attacked him. At first, Enric Mas followed them until he said enough was enough. "They have burst me", the Spaniard from Movistar, who went into crisis in the last 500 meters. "As I say, I'm satisfied if this is a bad day," Evenepoel conceded.
