Enric Mas impresses at World Championships: "We lost Tadej with 100 km to go. After that, I think we played our cards pretty well"

Enric Mas has confirmed his great form in this part of the season with a very good World Championship in Zurich 2024, where he finished eighth in the elite men's online race; being most of the time in the chasing group of the new rainbow jersey, Tadej Pogacar, fighting for the medals.

The Movistar rider finished third in the final overall classification of the Vuelta a España and confirms his great form ahead of Il Lombardia where he will try to test Pogacar as he's done two years ago. After crossing the finish line, the Mallorcan gave words to the Spanish Cycling Federation.

"I think we could have been a little closer to the medals, but the reality is that we finished eighth. The important thing is that we were there to fight". In the final kilometers he tried attacking a few times in search of the second place, but couldn't escape as he was followed by several classics specialists who were better suited to the explosive terrain.

"We lost Tadej with 100 km to go. After that, I think we played our cards pretty well. It's a pity Mikel [Landa] and Pello [Bilbao] crashed and had to abandon, because they were two fundamental people, two very good riders, and they are also two riders who know how to read the race very well and we lacked that. We lacked their grain of sand, which counts a lot. And then Roger [Adrià] was also very, very good. I could have been there in the group to fight, but it wasn't possible".

"There were very fast riders, who normally win very fast bunch sprints, and I tried, with one and a bit to go, or one to go, but van der Poel saw me out of the corner of his eye and took off and nothing, I can't say more."

Still it was a very positive performance from the Spaniard who was the team's best on the day, and proving to be one of the best climbers in the day. "I love one-day races. Now, we have finished the Vuelta well, we are, I think, very well for these three Italian classics that I race with the team. And I love those types of hard courses, I would have liked a little harder, but well, the World Championships was like that, we knew from what they presented that it was like that and nothing. Let's go for another".

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