Vuelta a España race leader Remco Evenepoel needed only two words to sum up his view of Saturday’s last key mountain stage, the final obstacle before an increasingly likely overall victory in Madrid.
“Muy dura,” Evenepoel told reporters in Spanish on Friday afternoon after stage 19. “Very hard.”
Over the years, the Vuelta's incursions into the Sierras of Madrid have proved to a very complicated challenge for its race leaders.
And so, even though Evenepoel currently has a comfortable advantage of 2:07 on Enric Mas (Movistar) and won the most recent summit finish at El Piornal, he still insisted any outcome was possible on Saturday's penultimate stage.
“I think it will be a lot of work and you can expect anything: the best, the worst,” said Evenepoel.
“It might go in any direction, but let’s hope everything goes in our direction and into our dream. It’s just one day of focusing, and then we’ll see. But for sure the race is still not won yet.”
With only 48 hours to go to Madrid, Evenepoel’s most dangerous rival, following the abandon of Primoz Roglic (Jumbo-Visma) is undoubtedly Mas. And after Movistar's aggressive climbing performances on the race's most recent summit finishes at El Piornal and Monasterio de Tentudia, it was hard to disagree with Evenepoel's assessment that “for sure they will try to take the red jersey on Saturday.”
However, Movistar’s desire to take the first win in their home Grand Tour since 2016 might be tempered slightly, he said, by their ongoing struggle to stay ahead in the WorldTour relegation battle. “Finishing second [with Mas] would be a good job for the UCI points, too,” Evenepoel noted.
“So they will try for sure, but I don’t think they will kill themselves and lose a lot of time.”
On stage 19 to Talavera de la Reina, the double ascent of the Puerto del Piélago reduced the size of the main bunch for the day's final sprint. Stress levels were notably lower than earlier this week, but Evenepoel said there had been a few tense moments all the same.
“I was worried about a crash and just getting inside the 3km [safety zone] in case I got a flat tyre or a bike problem, so I just wanted to stay safe because tomorrow [Saturday] is the last day,” he said.
“The biggest fear was to have a crash or to be unlucky so that’s why we were trying to stay in front with the guys. In the end, the last 1.3km was a straight line, so from there I could slow it down a bit and just follow in the wheels.”
As for how he was handling the steadily mounting pressure and expectations, given victory was almost within his grasp, Evenepoel said: “When you tomorrow is the last real GC stage, then obviously the tension is starting to grow.”
“The team starts to dream, I start to dream and I think staying as strong as possible is the best we can do. If we start getting stressed, we’ll lose energy, so there’s no need to panic. We just need to believe in ourselves as we have done since day one of the race."
