Look ahead to stage 12 and the rest of the Vuelta.
Looking back, stage 8 reminded us that we don’t need to be worried about Roglic, it was just a bad day and what it proved was that teams need a jacket tutorial, jacket training camp, like for Jai Hindely in the giro, jackets have been a disaster. Stage 8 had everyone on the limit, a true battle and we loved it, Roglic showed he is the man. Brought it to 13 seconds. Odd tactics from Movistar made an early attack but lost it all, bit of a head scratcher.
Stage 9 we get our sprint stage and it went as planned, slow day in the peloton and the strongest sprinter Sam Bennett got the win. But then it was taken away and given to Pascal Ackermann, that’s his first vuelta win so now he just needs one in the TDF to complete the trifecta. Bennett regulated.
Stage 10 was another day for the sprinters, until it wasn’t. categorized as a flat stage just 1 cat 3 climb in the middle, but a real brutish finish for the heavy sprinters, which are who we have here, 100m vertical up the last 2km and they just couldn’t hang, neither Ackerman nor Bennet could turn in a result and Roglic took the win.
Now today stage 11 massive stage and it was a bust in terms of tactics for Jumbo Visma. They will need to make the most out of stage 12 and the TT Tuesday if they want to lock in a win for Roglic.