"Because of the headwind, it was difficult to make a difference" - Jonas Vingegaard understands absence of Almeida attack

Jonas Vingegaard was tested, but overall he had a pretty calm day at the Vuelta a Espana, following wheels all day long and not being attacked by João Almeida in the battle that is set to define the winner of the overall classification.

After the stage, he admitted to Eurosport that he was happy with the result: "I'm happy to have taken the bonus seconds at the finish. They set a very strong pace on the climb, but because of the headwind, it was difficult to make a difference. In the sprint I knew that the later I went out the better, because it saved a lot on the wheel. I can be happy to have taken the bonus seconds today. We didn't expect it, but that's the way it was".

Until the stage to the Angliru it was obvious that Vingegaard wanted to take a win in red, and dedicate it to his family. But after João Almeida properly beat him in the hardest climb of the race, and the gaps being so small, there is no space to be spending energy for the sake of spending energy anymore, for himself and Team Visma | Lease a Bike.

"We didn't want to fight for the stage today, we wanted to save energy, especially Dylan and Wilco today, because they did a lot of work yesterday, and we wanted them to rest today. They still worked some, but less than yesterday. Overall, our plan worked very well today."

It was BORA and Jai Hindley who really put the pressure down on the climb to La Farrapona, but the gaps were only of a few seconds. Vingegaard and Almeida followed the Australian and then battled for minor bonus seconds in a sprint to the line, where the Dane was the fastest and extended his lead from 46 to 48 seconds.

Although he is almost thinking about next Monday's well-deserved rest day, he acknowledged that he had to be very careful to be attentive to the tough start of Sunday's stage, which can see a lot of action from GC outsiders.

"I'm happy with today being over, tomorrow we have another day before a rest day that I'm going to enjoy. Of course tomorrow we have to be very attentive because the start of the stage is very hard, then we will go to the rest day and hopefully we can relax there."

'Did you feel yesterday that you were the strongest in the Vuelta a España?' he was asked directly if he sees himself stronger than Almeida after these first almost 2 weeks of competition.

"I feel I have very good legs, João was very strong yesterday, today I was able to beat him in the sprint, but I think also today he was very strong. I think he also realized, as I realized, that with the headwind it's difficult to make a difference and he didn't try anything either," Vingegaard concluded.