‘I kept smashing at the pedals’ – João Almeida and Juan Ayuso close on leader Jonas Vingegaard at Vuelta a España after UAE claim spectacular TTT victory

Fans of UAE Team Emirates-XRG must have had their hearts in their mouths in closing moments of the Vuelta a España team time trial on Wednesday, as the squad roared into the final 500 metres of stage 5 ahead of their rivals, but down to just four riders and one of them, Marc Soler, visibly struggling.

Times are taken on the fourth rider across the line, so it was clearly going to be touch and go for holding on together as a unit to take the victory. But Soler did, just, manage to dig deep and stay in contact with his three teammates, with UAE netting the victory by just eight seconds over arch-rivals Visma-Lease a Bike.

As a result, Vingegaard may have regained the top spot overall, but UAE’s co-leaders Juan Ayuso and João Almeida remain very much in the running, both trailing Vingegaard by a scant eight seconds.

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Yet whatever happens now, the UAE victory represents a major morale boost for the squad, just as the race heads into the mountains. It comes after an opening leg, too, in which Vingegaard and Visma-Lease a Bike have been dominating, albeit by narrow margins, almost from day one, with Vingegaard spending three days of the first five in the lead and taking a blistering first stage win at Limone Piemonte and an impressive third place on Monday behind David Gaudu (Groupama-FDJ) in an uphill sprint.

On the race’s return across the French border back into Catalonia, the boot is very much on the other foot, though as Visma-Lease a Bike were widely predicted to the winners of the lengthy TTT, following their victory in the same event, albeit in a different format, in Paris-Nice back in March.

Instead, Almeida, Ayuso and UAE could celebrate a win which puts them close behind Vingegaard and which shows that for all Visma are still widely seen as the favourites, UAE will certainly give them a good run for their money.

“We’re going to really enjoy this one,” Sports Director Joxean Fernández Matxin told Spanish TV afterwards.

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“It’s our 74th win of the season, our team has a great attitude towards racing in general and this is a very special one.

“We had to do a second TTT recon because the first one didn’t work out, but we proved we could get there when it mattered, and we’ve shown how we can do it well.”

He confirmed that the course had been more technical than when the route was originally revealed in December, making for some changes, the road so narrow it forced riders into single file at some points. But they had made the TTT a target, bringing riders like Mikkel Bjerg, former Australian TT National Champion Jay Vine, Ivo Oliveira and Felix Grosschartner, partly with that goal in mind.

They knew too, Matxin said, that “Visma, Lidl-Trek and Ineos” were the big stage rivals – as proved to be exactly the case.

“Today was a big team effort, so this doesn’t say much about how we’ll perform individually in the mountains, but it was a really nice experience, and it was great to be up there celebrating on the podium with all my teammates,” Almeida added.

“They do a lot of hard work behind the scenes, and they don’t often appear on the TV after the finishes, so it was great to be able to have a special moment like that for the group.”

Almeida recognised the gaps had been very small between the different teams, and UAE certainly had moments when they looked to be about to take a commanding lead in the time trial, only for that potential advantage to fail to materialize into something more significant.

UAE were on the same time as stage leaders Ineos at the first checkpoint, Domen Novak then fell behind his early effort and rider after rider, from Vine through to Oliveira and Grosschchartner, followed suit. The squad also came perilously close to losing the fourth rider, Soler, in the closing moments, but the Catalan rider came good on home soil, allowing UAE to claim their first team time trial win at Grand Tour level in the squad’s history.

“We knew it was good for us, but there were a lot of good teams, but I think we did a perfect job,” Almeida, now third overall, said later. “We deserve it, it’s great for the mood in the team.

“The gaps are small, it doesn’t mean everything but it’s a good start. We had a plan and we did it perfectly, there were some surprises but it was in a good way, it was an amazing team effort.

“Everybody was a little bit tired at the end and we were going all in. I was looking back to see where my teammates were, because the fourth guy is the most important. But I saw we were all there so I kept smashing at the pedals.”

The next step upwards for Almeida would be the Vuelta a España lead, but with Vingegaard in red, that may well prove a tough nut to crack. Still he’s determined to give it a go.

“I would like to have it, it’s a beautiful jersey, I’ve never worn it before, and it doesn’t matter when I wear it, just if I can,” Almeida said. “It’s getting closer and closer, so maybe we can grab it.”

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