Enric Mas' first half of 2023 in review

Enric Mas started the 2023 season as he finished the 2022 season, like a bullet, but in the last two races he has raced, Tirreno-Adriatico and Itzulia, he has not shined. We analyze his season to date and what we can expect from him in the future.

After a very complicated year 2022 marked by crashes and lack of confidence that had its worst moment in the Tour de France, Enric finished the year with good feelings fighting the Vuelta a España to Remco Evenepoel, winning a classic in Italy to Tadej Pogacar and only being beaten by the Slovenian in the final sprint of Il Lombardia.

With these same feelings he started the Vuelta a Andalucía, in which he was the second best of the race (although he finished fifth due to a mishap in the first mountain stage). Despite that, he showed his teeth again to a Pogacar who could at times only beat him in the final sprints.

However, in the last two races he has raced, Tirreno-Adriatico and Itzulia, we have seen again a Enric Mas fighting for a secondary place in the overall classification, perhaps simply for lack of legs at a time of the season in which the most important thing is to get more kilometers.

He finished sixth in the Italian race and fifth in the Basque race. Last year he came out of this race much worse, with crashes and lack of confidence. This year he comes out with a good level, not to shoot rockets, but not to say that he can fight for the podium of the Tour de France (the first two places with Pogacar and Jonas Vingegaard on another planet seem hard to speak otherwise).

So, beyond what Enric Mas can do in the races he races before the Tour de France (Critérium du Dauphiné and Tour de Suisse), the important thing is that he arrives at one hundred percent for the Grand Boucle and then, as he has managed to do in recent years, with strength to finally try to go beyond second place and win the Vuelta a España.