Bittner pissed off as DSM fumbled today's unexpected sprint opportunity: "I was in the wind a lot and I didn't have the legs to sprint anymore"

Pavel Bittner already did it. He's already won the fifth stage of Vuelta a Espana in his Grand Tour debut. But with food comes hunger and that's not different for the 22-year-old Czech who wanted to grasp the unexpected sprint opportunity on the fourteenth stage of the race. Despite a scary-looking 22km climb near the finish, the sprinter of team dsm-firmenich PostNL narrowly managed to hang on to the main group and he was presented with a great opportunity to finish at the very least on the podium.

However things didn't work out as envisioned. When his teammates powered to the front of the group with 1500 meters to go, the Czech took too long to find the acceleration way too fast and wasted a lot of energy trying to hang on to his colleagues before eventually finding a spot a bit further in the bunch. As the riders entered the final stretch, Bittner seemd well-positioned in the wheel of Wout Van Aert, but when Groves and the Belgian opened their sprints, Bittner's legs stood still and he rolled to the line in 38th place.

"I'm standing here with mixed feelings. I never expected to survive that last climb and be able to sprint at all," Bittner said in an interview with Eurosport.

"In the final there was only miscommunication within the team," Bittner continues with what went less well. "Because of that I was in the wind a lot and I didn't have the legs to sprint anymore. All in all it was a good team performance today, but it wasn't meant to be."

Finally, Bittner also showed his admiration for the effort of Visma | Lease a Bike. "We saw from the start that Visma wanted to ride hard for Van Aert and that they would bring it back. I actually thought they would go a bit harder on the last climb, but in the end they did very well."