DISCUSSION Vuelta a España Stage 10 | Did Juan Ayuso redeem himself? What are UAE's tactics at the Vuelta?

The tenth stage of the Vuelta a España took place after the first rest day, featuring a similar route compared to that on Sunday with a final summit finish.

The start of the stage was not easy by any means, not because of the gradients - it was mostly flat - but because of the extremely high pace imposed by the riders. Everyone knew the breakaway was almost bound to succeed so the battle to catch it was fierce.

It took 100km of racing until the break was established, formed by 30 riders representing most of the teams. Main names included Jay Vine, Pablo Castrillo, Junior Lecerf, Kevin Vermaerke, Alec Segaert and Archie Ryan, amongst others.

Lecerf was the best rider of the break in the GC, sitting less than 5 minutes behind Torstein Traeen. That is why Bahrain – Victorious started working to avoid the difference to increase too much. However, they did not have the power to reduce the gap, which kept rising steadily until reaching 3:30.

Alec Segaert would attack before the final climb (Larra Belagua, 9.4km à 6.1%), but he would be quickly caught during the first ramps. Movistar tried to surprise with both Javier Romo and Pablo Castrillo, but there was nobody stronger than Jay Vine. The Australian outperformed everyone else and raised his arms for the second time at this Vuelta.

Behind them, UAE decided to test the legs of the GC contenders, with Juan Ayuso launching his teammate Joao Almeida. The Portuguese tried to fly solo but the climb was not hard enough for him to make the difference, although his acceleration dropped important riders such as Egan Bernal or Felix Gall, who lost some time at the finish line. The rest of the main favourites for the overall arrived together, with Jonas Vingegaard retaking the red jersey after Torstein Traeen was also dropped and lost a significant amounf of time.

Once the stage finished, we asked some of our writers to share their thoughts and main takeaways about what happened today.

It was an interesting day, featuring the first hours-long breakaway battle which is always something I'm a fan of, and included Jonas Vingegaard's own odd attack, but one that brought some excitement to the day. However even with this the script for the day was followed with no exception: Strong breakaway fighting for the win; Bahrain controlling in the peloton to keep chances of keeping the red jersey; GC favourites arriving together. Add to that Torstein Traeen losing the lead, wasn't a certain but because the pace was high, it was always going to be the case in this scenario.

UAE put in an attack in the peloton, unexpected I would say, but I think it was mostly Juan Ayuso who wanted to prove to Almeida and the team that he is willing to work, and so they set up a move for Almeida but the climb simply was not hard enough to create differences. Or let's say, Jonas Vingegaard could perhaps, but he was not interested in doing that. So the GC riders arrived together, exactly what you'd expect from a stage designed like this.

The typical uniport stage, sunday's was an exception. Normally not the type of stage where you expect to see big gaps between the GC guys, and the expected scenario happened. I also expected a breakaway to win, the only question was who was going to be there. I wrote down 3 names before the start.

1st was Tiberi as i was expecting Traeen to drop his red jersey (which he did) and maybe thought Tiberi might have some freedom to go for it, second was Sergio Higuita as he seems to be going a lot under the radar and i figured XDS Astana might wanna throw in a guy for UCI points, and the third was Pablo Castrillo who ended up in 2nd. I was not expecting Vine to go for it again, specially with all the fuzz around Emirates at the moment. Once i saw Vine on the break, it was clear he was the favourite for the win and he delivered.

On the other side, i am pleased to see today a different atitude from Juan Ayuso, and i mean on the road. Seems like the air has cleared off and now that we're done pretending maybe he'd like to at least clear up his reputation for the remaining of the race, he'll certainly need that if he hopes to play a significant role in whatever project follows in his career.

Ayuso was a key member on the last mountain for setting an high tempo and preparing ground for João Almeida's attack, so today noone can blame him for lack of team support. His efforts combined with Mikkel Bjerg's (who was dropping from the break) were a good preparation for João Almeida's attack and the portuguese rider tried his best 2 times but today simply wasnt hard enough to make differences.

Better to save his strenghts to another day. We could have argued that Vine should have dropped to help set higher pace for Almeida, but likely Almeida also felt today wasnt the day to make the difference and there was a stage win to fight for. Overall i think the mood will calm down a bit in the Emirates bus tonight.

Today the breakaway saved a day that was once again disappointing among the favourites for the general classification. There was little attacking on the final climb to Larra Belagua, although the role of Juan Ayuso should be highlighted. The Spaniard, after all the controversy generated by his problematic departure from UAE at the end of the season, decided to forget everything outside and focus on helping Joao Almeida. In the first ramps, Ayuso was in charge of accelerating the pace and unhooking Torstein Traeen, who lost the red jersey as a result. So there is nothing to reproach him for today.

On the other hand, I would like to mention Movistar Team, which is still trying to win stages. Today they came very close after a very outstanding performance by Pablo Castrillo and Javier Romo. The former finished 2nd in the stage. It was the same as always. Movistar, despite being a World Tour team, is far inferior to teams like UAE, and Jay Vine proved it by winning the stage without making devastating attacks on the final climb.

The ‘unipuerto’ stage was successful again after the 9th round in Valdezcaray. A very lively start, with several escape attempts, ended up with almost 30 cyclists at the front, including two Emirates men: Jay Vine and Mikkel Bjerg.

Bahrain was comfortable with the situation and controlled the gap under the time of the best placed rider at the front, Lecerf, at 4:50. It was all very fast, the breakaway split up quickly and before the final climb, Alec Segaert tried to pull off a little stunt. He won on the flat, lost on the climb and was caught, Castrillo was still isolated, but Vine would be alone at the front, while the team took command of the peloton.

Juan Ayuso worked for João Almeida, I never thought I'd write that sentence, it was a 1/2 minute effort, but it completely broke up the group, Bjerg dropped out of the breakaway and pulled away for another 1km, with João Almeida then accelerating. Vingegaard and Pidcock responded easily, the Red Bull men at more expense, but also. The Portuguese rider tried again, but made no difference.

Jay Vine took off and won the stage, should the UAE have stopped him to help the leader? Not in that context, you can't stop a rider who's going to win a stage, the problem is that they shouldn't have let him go to the front. Vine is in excellent form and is burning himself out, with Pogacar none of this would happen - Emirates continues to fail tactically.

As for the favourites, there were no major differences, Traeen lost the red, nothing surprising, Fortunato dropped out of the top 10, a scenario that was already foreseen, O'Connor, Gall and Bernal dropped a few seconds, more surprising, but nothing to worry about. Riccitello made it into the top 10, and what a climb the little American has made, I'm curious to see what he'll do in the next few stages. Tomorrow we have a big stage ahead of us, bota lume João!

The main story of the day was obviously Juan Ayuso’s bomb, very unexpected in some ways. However, maybe all the drama surrounding the official announcement of his departure yesterday and the subsequent comments he made this morning accusing the team were positive for him after all, given that today we saw him helping Almeida for the first time this Vuelta.

Before the start of the final climb, he was positioning the Portuguese, and during the ascent he commanded the peloton to launch him. That was the first time I saw him actually showing some teamwork spirit, which is nice. Let’s hope that becomes the new normality, Almeida deserves it.

Today it was other UAE domestiques who did not do their job, not Ayuso. I think we should put the focus on Marc Soler, because he has gone unnoticed so far, or at least he has not received as much criticism as Ayuso even if he has also shown zero support for Almeida.

When UAE was paving the way for Almeida, what you would expect was to see Soler pulling as well. But he was not there, and it is not the first time that it happens. Instead, he shelters inside the bunch and just tries to follow the pace. It seems he is just playing his own game to get a good GC result while showing zero interest in helping his leader.

That is so detrimental for Almeida’s chances to challenge Vingegaard, but what baffles me is that UAE does just… not seem to care? They allowed Ayuso to look for his own stage wins the previous stages, they allow Jay Vine to go to the break almost every day and prioritize the KOM jersey rather than helping Almeida, and they also seem fine with Soler riding for his own GC spot. Today Almeida would have highly appreciated more help in the climb, but Vine and Soler were busy. At least Vine won, while Soler just lost more time. Poor Almeida.