Remco Evenepoel (Soudal-QuickStep) made it clear on Wednesday that tomorrow's second summit finish of the Vuelta a España would be a major voyage in the dark. The current race leader faces a second mountain stage of the Vuelta on stage 6, having won the first challenge on stage 3 to Andorra.
When asked what he knew about the Javalambre, the category 1 climb set deep in the sierras of Teruel that will play a decisive role in Thursday’s stage, he answered simply: “I don’t know anything. I don’t know what to expect.”
Of all the top favourites in the 2023 Vuelta, only Primož Roglič (Jumbo-Visma) has previous experience of the Javalambre, last tackled by the Vuelta in 2019. Roglič claimed sixth on the stage and outpaced almost all his rivals barring Miguel Ángel López and Alejandro Valverde when the GC group splintered. His Jumbo teammate and climbing expert Sepp Kuss was also present that year and finished ninth.
Roglič went on to win the overall in 2019, and will be one big challenger on Thursday. But Evenepoel said after stage 5 that he will be mostly watching another Jumbo-Visma racer on Thursday.
"Jonas Vingegaard is the best climber in the world. So you always pay attention and you look more at his wheel than usual,” he told Belgian agency Sporza.
"The final climb is also more difficult than Monday’s to Andorra. I hope there is a nice breakaway that can go for the stage victory and then we'll see what we do with the jersey.
However, Evenepoel also warned his rivals, "A half-hour climb like that should suit me right now".
The ultra-versatile Belgian racer showed off another of his multiple talents on stage 5’s flat finale - snatching six seconds in an intermediate sprint late on. He managed to outpace Australian fastman Kaden Groves (Alpecin-Deceuninck), who then went on to win the stage outright and later said he was saving energy at the intermediate for the final bunch sprint.
The fight for seconds brought back memories of the 2021 Giro d’Italia when Evenepoel sometimes duelled Egan Bernal (Ineos Grenadiers) for top spots in intermediate sprints prior to his abandon in the Dolomites.
Two years later at the Vuelta, the Belgian said he had not intentionally planned to increase his GC advantage through a bonus second battle, although he also he pointed out that just Roglič had won the Giro by a scant 14 seconds this May. The implication being that if there are any low-hanging seconds within the Belgian's target range, then, it only made sense to scoop them up.
“We’d hoped there’d still be a break in front” - to mop up the seconds on offer - “but there wasn’t. Then we saw UAE coming up to try and get those seconds with [Juan] Ayuso, I guess," Evenepoel explained to Sporza, "so I went for them myself.
“The final was technical and fast and the roads are slippery on the coast. We were at the front through all those roundabouts and then there was the sprint.
“In any case, it’s a good way of finishing off these two sprint stages. I had thought the bonus was three seconds, but apparently it was six. So that’s not bad.”
Now 11 seconds clear of Enric Mas (Movistar) on GC, Evenepoel said he had apologized to Groves, as his first place deprived the Australian of securing the maximum benefit possible from the sprint for the points competition, which the Alpecin sprinter is currently leading.
“I don't want to get in the way of his points, but he said it was no problem,” Evenepoel said, before joking, “Kaden said it was easy to follow my wheel. That was a bit discouraging.
“It didn't take too much effort. It's nice, but the most important thing about the whole stage was that we stayed upright.”
