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Vuelta a Espana - Discussion
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| baseballlover312 |
Posted on 26-01-2024 23:07
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AKA has just been awful here. Half way through the waste and zero top 5's despite being the second or third best sprinter here. What a waste of race days. Should have planned him for races against tougher fields.
RIP Exxon Duke, David Veilleux, Double Feature, and Monster Energy |
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| Marcovdw |
Posted on 27-01-2024 08:24
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Hodeg out of energy in this race already and Vosekalns kicked out of the polka dots. Not a good day for us.
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| DubbelDekker |
Posted on 27-01-2024 11:47
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Nice attack by Bernard
Congrats ember! Great tour for you so far
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| alexkr00 |
Posted on 27-01-2024 14:38
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Van Poppel doing the best out of that awful positioning, but in the end it's not a great result. And it also marks the end of bonus points from the green jersey rankings.
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| cio93 |
Posted on 27-01-2024 17:54
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Possibly the queen stage coming up, with the longest and hardest climbs this Vuelta has to offer.
This might shape the entire race, so I hope we're ready for it and Herklotz has a good day to stay with Kudus.
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| AbhishekLFC |
Posted on 27-01-2024 18:14
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Shirota having two nice stages in the day's break! We've been very active in this race so far!
Congrats to the winners and thanks for the reports Ulrich.
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| baseballlover312 |
Posted on 28-01-2024 03:35
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Great stuff! 9th is just where we want to be. A few more stages like that, and we'll be in the perfect position to take the red jersey from a break in the last week. Only half kidding. After the Giro result, a similar situation does seem inevitable here. Puma clearly don't have the manpower to control this race once real GC guys start heading up the road in the last week (and sometimes the AI doesn't want to anyway). I think herklotz might put enough time into everyone to at least hold on for red, but the rest of the top 10 will be a crazy shuffle.
Thank you Ulrich for the report! They've been amazing so far, and this one was particularly great even with a ton of moving parts.
RIP Exxon Duke, David Veilleux, Double Feature, and Monster Energy |
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| Ad Bot |
Posted on 08-12-2025 01:55
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| Luis Leon Sanchez |
Posted on 28-01-2024 07:42
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A great 2nd from Thijssen on Stage 10! He moves up to 2nd in the Points although he'd need a miracle to contest 1st with the gap Prasad has. Hopefully he can snag a stage win though!
Wellens strong in Stage 11 although he probably should have dropped Sivakov in the end. He continues his climb into what should be 4th place. We look to have the strongest supporting cast of those near the top of the GC with Soler and Rodriguez working well. Conci also keeping in there at 20th in the GC as it stands.
Thanks for the continued pace and quality of reports! Certainly not going unnoticed 
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| Marcovdw |
Posted on 28-01-2024 09:48
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A day in red would have been a nice bonus but we have the mountains jersey on our shoulders now. Thanks for the reports UU and congrats cio!
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| cunego59 |
Posted on 28-01-2024 09:52
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Awesome reports UU, great to read as a neutral. Like bbl mentioned, and as I noted in the preview, the poor mountain support of the top teams is already showing. It'll be interesting to see how the remaining mountain stages develop. Congrats cio on a so far very in control looking Herklotz!
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| knockout |
Posted on 28-01-2024 10:10
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Finally Eenkhoorn joins into the break fights. Was about time. Looked very promising for the break for a long time but that stage was lomg and the final climb obviously costs minutes of the gap. Will be interesting how puma will control the later stages.
Thanks for a great report of what looked like a real messy stage.
A Big Thank You To All MG Reporters! |
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| alexkr00 |
Posted on 28-01-2024 10:12
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For a moment there I thought we are going to see another breakaway win.
Good to see Formolo amongst the top 10 best climbers in a stage like this. And he's slowly getting into a top 10 spot in the GC as well. But it could all be crumbling down in the last week like bbl mentioned. I don't think those stages have the profiles to shake things up at the very top through breakaways, but anything could happen outside the podium.
Now back to a couple of sprint stages. Hoping for Van Poppel to have at least one more big sprint in him as it could guarantee him a good place in the green jersey competition as well.
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| DubbelDekker |
Posted on 28-01-2024 11:23
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Good try by Warchol! He also collected a lot of KoM points and because eventually he lost minutes to the favourites he'll probably be allowed in future breaks.
Incredibly detailed report UU. Insane quality
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| cio93 |
Posted on 28-01-2024 16:39
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Stellar reporting on that wild queen stage, thank you Ulrich!
I'm over the moon with our riding today, although I have to extend my gratitude to every team helping out with the chase here and there to make the catch happen.
Silvio showed both restraint as well as excellent race sense to attack when he did and cooperate when he did, the false flat part could've easily sapped too much energy on his own if it had been a solo ride from much earlier.
In the end, the gap to Kudus wasn't impressive, so any bad day can easily turn the tide, not to mention the scenario that is on everyone's mind after the Giro.
Obviously though, any gap to a better climber on paper is amazing!
Two days to chill now, and then Xorret del Cati which should suit us perfectly.
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| ember |
Posted on 28-01-2024 18:07
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5th in the sprint on stage 10 was solid by Prasad. Not his fault he has made me get use to brilliancy, when 5th is more of a normal result by him  It added valuable points to his total as well, as 2nd in the points jersey could become a natural goal, behind Herklotz, that is, as I suspect him to run away with everything here, especially seeing how other teams are helpful bringing things back together
What a queen stage that was!  Excellent report, UU, thank you for that! Roman definitely got outclassed in the early action in the breakaway, which makes me fear for what's to come there in the final week regarding our chances for breakaway participation/success.
Regarding the points jersey, the upcoming two stages will be absolutely key for us. If Prasad can overperform there, we could even dream of the jersey win, which would be massive for us. Really hope he can continue to get good positions, hopefully helped by Kragh, who should be the perfect domestique for such work. Excited for those two flat stages, who would have thought, pre race! |
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| SotD |
Posted on 28-01-2024 18:16
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Nice to see Carapaz give it a go. Worrying, though, that he wasn’t stronger. Now he’s even behind Mavrikakis in the GC.
Just gotta cross my fingers that we will be very aggressive in the final part of the race. A stagewin might be needed to fulfill our pre race expectations with top 10 safely out of reach.
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| Bikex |
Posted on 28-01-2024 21:24
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Finally the lead-out worked! Amazing job by the team and Hsu to finish it off. Also nice to see Sosa to continue to be active and getting himself in a good position for the KoM fight. I do expect some more from him in the coming stages. |
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| ryant |
Posted on 28-01-2024 21:39
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Decent stage from Morton but not impressive, still we don't lose much more time to Kudus and Herklotz but it has become obvious that we won't be competing for anything else than 3rd. Not great on our end, especially since we aren't in the podium spots yet either. 
Our only hope is Morton can go early and somehow he gets enough leeway to scrape back time or grab a stage win.
Herklotz again the king, not surprised that Morton can't match him but Kudus as well not managing to best him is also a surprise.
 John St Ledger in Team Bunzl-Centrica and Team U25Red Bull Driver in RFactor
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| baseballlover312 |
Posted on 29-01-2024 04:19
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Finally! A stage win was really the only way to salvage AKA's race at this point (or at least a first step towards doing so), and he comes through. When he went that early again I thought it was all over. Seen it too many times this race. But maybe it was a slight downhill or the road width or something, and this time it worked. Not gonna complain about it, that's for sure. Seemed like a good day overall for the top sprinters too - the top 6 finishers were the six best in the race, albeit in different orders.
AKA still needs to follow it up with a good sprint tomorrow and finish out the race strong if he wants any chance of really making this GT meet expectations. But it's cool to see him win a GT stage for the second time in his career. No only the Tour to go!
RIP Exxon Duke, David Veilleux, Double Feature, and Monster Energy |
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| ember |
Posted on 29-01-2024 06:31
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Ah, that looked like a golden opportunity missed by Prasad  We really need to make the most out of those if we’re going to wear the jersey all the way, I suspect. His position was perfect just before the kilometer banner, but for unknown reason he started sprinting far too late. And he seemed quick when he actually sprinted as well, advancing all the way back up to 7th.
Nice to see Kragh win! Congratulations, bbl |
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