{"id":875325,"date":"2026-08-29T03:24:15","date_gmt":"2026-08-29T03:24:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/875325\/"},"modified":"2026-08-29T03:24:15","modified_gmt":"2026-08-29T03:24:15","slug":"a-good-day-to-try-something-felix-gall-upbeat-after-aggressive-final-ascent-at-vuelta-a-espana","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/875325\/","title":{"rendered":"‘A good day to try something’ – Felix Gall upbeat after aggressive final ascent at Vuelta a Espa\u00f1a"},"content":{"rendered":"

For a second major mountain stage of three in this year’s Vuelta a Espa\u00f1a<\/a>, Tadej Poga\u010dar continues to dominate the GC<\/a>, but UAE Team Emirates-XRG was once again subjected to a major challenge by Decathlon CMA CGM.<\/p>\n

Halfway up the summit finish climb of Aram\u00f3n Valdelinares<\/a>, with UAE down to four riders including Poga\u010dar, the French squad suddenly put Gregor Muhlberger and Matthew Riccitello up front, swamping the UAE line.<\/p>\n

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As at Andorra on stage 4, Decathlon’s decision to try to isolate Poga\u010dar worked up to a point, and it even culminated, once again, in an intense drive of around 300 metres by their leader, Felix Gall<\/a>, to which only Poga\u010dar could respond.<\/p>\n

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However, that was as good as it got, as the Vuelta leader then moved away ahead of the Austrian climber, leaving Gall to continue with a lone pursuit of the Slovenian – but ahead of his GC rivals.<\/p>\n

Gall crossed the line six seconds behind Poga\u010dar but with a 10-second advantage on Enric Mas (Movistar) and a further 23 on the remainder of his GC rivals. That pushes him up a spot into fourth overall, and with Primo\u017e Rogli\u010d (Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe) only 11 seconds ahead, the battle for the podium is growing more intense with each stage that passes.<\/p>\n

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It was a much better performance<\/a>, too, for Gall after stage 6’s difficult day on the gravel-capped climb of Puerto de El Bartolo, where he lost time on Poga\u010dar and Mas. This time round, even if the Slovenian remains out of reach – and he’s hardly alone in that – on this occasion, Gall was definitely best of the rest.<\/p>\n

“It’s nice to create some gaps, it was a bit of a more of a relaxed day, the most relaxed day of the first part of the race, so that was nice, and I’m definitely happy with the outcome of today,” Gall said afterwards.<\/p>\n

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“I felt much better today, yesterday was also, in the end, a good day apart from the final, which was pretty bad, but that’s how it is in a Grand Tour sometimes.”<\/p>\n

As was only logical, Gall paid tribute to Decathlon for turning in such an impressive all-round performance, one which even if it didn’t put Poga\u010dar into difficulties, certainly had the right kind of effect regarding his GC aspirations for the podium.<\/p>\n

“The guys always push me to be more aggressive. Gregor is always motivated, he can always push me to try something.<\/p>\n

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“It was super nice, I suffered quite a bit on Gregor’s wheel, that’s for sure, but it’s a pleasure to race with such a strong team and nice to get some gaps today.”<\/p>\n

The plan to attack on Aram\u00f3n took shape during the race, he said, with the initial aim to be more conservative, but then it turned out that “it was a good day to try something. We have strong teammates, so you can actually do that.”<\/p>\n

However, whilst only Poga\u010dar able to withstand his assault, Gall recognised there was a limit to his ambitions, and that didn’t involve dislodging the Slovenian star from the top spot overall.<\/p>\n

“Tadej was just doing his pace, and I wasn’t really focusing on him,” he explained. “This is a race for the podium; you take him out of the equation.”<\/p>\n

For unbeatable coverage across road, gravel and tech, subscribe to Cyclingnews. You’ll get comprehensive race coverage of La Vuelta a Espa\u00f1a, subscriber-exclusive analysis from our expert columnists, in-depth features and industry-leading tech insight. Plus, the Cyclingnews app lets you follow the action wherever you go! Join today.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"For a second major mountain stage of three in this year’s Vuelta a Espa\u00f1a, Tadej Poga\u010dar continues to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":875326,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[445],"tags":[49,48,635,82],"class_list":["post-875325","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cycling","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-cycling","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/875325","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=875325"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/875325\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/875326"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=875325"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=875325"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=875325"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}