{"id":104766,"date":"2025-08-31T10:26:14","date_gmt":"2025-08-31T10:26:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/104766\/"},"modified":"2025-08-31T10:26:14","modified_gmt":"2025-08-31T10:26:14","slug":"david-gaudu-collapses-like-a-souffle-in-the-vuelta","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/104766\/","title":{"rendered":"David Gaudu collapses like a souffl\u00e9 in the Vuelta"},"content":{"rendered":"

David Gaudu<\/a> and the Vuelta a Espa\u00f1a<\/a> have always had a special relationship, and this year is no different. The 28-year-old Frenchman from Groupama-FDJ<\/a> won two stages on debut in 2020, bounced back from a lost season to finish sixth last year, and started this week with a stage win on day 3, taking the red jersey a day later<\/a>. Everything seemed to be going perfectly, until it suddenly wasn\u2019t. In the mountains, Gaudu collapsed like a souffl\u00e9.<\/p>\n

His run-up to the Vuelta had already been a rollercoaster. Like the year before, he broke his hand in the spring. That injury led to an anonymous Tour de France in 2024, and this year, Groupama-FDJ opted not to select him at all. After another low-key showing at the Giro, Gaudu wasn\u2019t ready for the French grand tour and shifted focus to the Vuelta instead. That plan was working\u2026 until it wasn\u2019t.<\/p>\n

Signs of trouble started in stage 6 on Thursday. Gaudu had already lost the red jersey in the team time trial on stage 5, and in the Andorran mountains, he dropped around 30 seconds to the other GC contenders. A day later, with another mountain-top finish in Huesca La Magia, the Frenchman finished nearly 15 minutes behind stage winner Juan Ayuso, similar to Antonio Tiberi of Bahrain Victorious.<\/p>\n

Anyone who thought Gaudu might be back in the GC fight was left disappointed. The real question now is how he recovers from two tough days, with plenty of climbing still to come.
\n\u201cI don\u2019t know what happened, I just didn\u2019t have a good feeling,\u201d he told L\u2019\u00c9quipe<\/a> at the finish. \u201cI didn\u2019t feel great on Thursday either. And the team time trial? That was just average. So let\u2019s just say\u2026 it\u2019s getting worse every day.\u201d<\/p>\n

Continue reading below the photo<\/p>\n

\"david-gaudu\"\/<\/p>\n

David Gaudu rode one day in the red this Vuelta<\/p>\n

Is illness bringing Gaudu down?<\/p>\n

And just like that, after beating the likes of Mads Pedersen and Jonas Vingegaard on stage 3, David Gaudu has fallen way off the pace.
\n\u201cI hung in there, but it really wasn\u2019t good,\u201d he admitted after stage 7, sounding anything but optimistic. \u201cIt is what it is. I don\u2019t have an explanation, and neither does the team. Just a few days ago I was at my best, and now\u2026 this. I don\u2019t know what\u2019s happening. My body just isn\u2019t responding. My heart rate doesn\u2019t go up anymore, and that\u2019s hard. I can\u2019t put out any power, it feels like I\u2019m blocked.\u201d<\/p>\n

With many riders abandoning during the second weekend of the Vuelta due to illness, the big question now is whether Gaudu, too, has caught something. He couldn\u2019t say for sure, though he did point out that riding for the overall classification was never really the goal. \u201cSo I might as well lose fifteen minutes when I feel like I just don\u2019t have it. Let\u2019s see what we can still do in weeks two and three. In a way, it\u2019s a weight off my shoulders. I can race more freely now, if I can get my legs back.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"David Gaudu and the Vuelta a Espa\u00f1a have always had a special relationship, and this year is no…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":104767,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[37],"tags":[4985,101,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-104766","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-cycling","8":"tag-cycling","9":"tag-sports","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom","12":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/104766","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=104766"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/104766\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/104767"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=104766"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=104766"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=104766"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}