The 25-kilometre individual time trial through Valladolid will tear apart the handkerchief in which the favorites to win the Vuelta are in the classification. In 33 seconds Evenepoel, Roglic, Landa, Vingegaard, Mas, Ayuso and Almeida crowded together. When the stage is over, the wrong must be clarified. When Kuss, leader, crosses the finish line last, the differences will have been hollowed out by force. And who knows if the red jersey will end up on the torso of Marc Soler, now second, 43s behind the American in the Jumbo.
The Catalan from the UAE is in front of a unique opportunity at 29 years of age. It's been five, since Jesús Herrada dressed him in 2018, that a Spaniard has not commanded the home round. The last Catalan to lead the Vuelta was David de la Cruz in 2016 after winning at Naranco.
Since he has run for the Emirates team, Soler has barely played any time trial seriously. Without going any further, in the Tour he was 130th, more than seven minutes behind Vingegaard, who astonished the world. You have to go back to 2019 in his Movistar days to find his last top 10 in the specialty: eighth in the Vuelta over 36 km and ninth in Paris-Nice over 25 km.
“Soler can do a great time trial and stay on top. It will be a great solution for us for the last week. We can use him to put pressure ”, analyzes Juan Ayuso, his partner. To dress in red, the man from Vilanova must watch behind him, as he has a 1m39s margin over Remco Evenepoel.
“He is the time trial world champion and he is the great favourite”, says Ayuso about the Belgian, who won two time trials in the Giro (he put 43s and 17s, respectively, against Roglic) before retiring. "Anything below 30s with him is a good result for me," he advances.
Ayuso arrives with good morale, as he has won two time trials this year: in Romandie and in Switzerland (this one with 8s over Evenepoel). At 20 years old he is still improving in the discipline, aware of his importance. “The differences that are made in the time trials are difficult to recover. If you lose a minute it is almost impossible to get it from the Roglics, Vingegaard and company at the Tourmalet ”, he compares, wanting to prove himself.
