How questionable were Quick-Step's actions today? Casper Pedersen explains complete switch in plans: "Today we actually wanted to give Mattia Cattaneo the chance to go for the stage"
Cycling
Richard Carapaz attacked the GC group hard today and Ben O'Connor was in difficulty; Equipo Kern Pharma took an unbelievable third stage win in the space of a week... But the main story of the day was perhaps Mikel Landa's time loss and the very questionable tactics of Soudal - Quick-Step to call back one of their riders when he was in the fight for the stage win.
Casper Pedersen, one of Quick-Step's three riders who joined the 42-rider breakaway today, was asked about what happened during the stage. Pedersen initially dropped back to the GC group, and only a few minutes later to the Basque rider who was dropped in the main climb of the day. There looked to be a look of confusion and chaos for the Belgian team.
"It was difficult to help Landa in time. I first did my work for Cattaneo, that was plan one," Pedersen said in a post-race interview. "Then I saved my legs and then did everything I could in the group with Landa. Vansevenant and Cattaneo were still a lot further ahead and could only do their work later".
Pedersen admits that the priority on the day was his Italian teammate: "Today we actually wanted to give Mattia Cattaneo the chance to go for the stage. He always does so much work for the team. This day was really for him." The Italian, in great form, has worked on several mountain stages for Landa and is in terrific form. Today he was in the fight for the stage win when when he was called back... With 13 kilometers to go.
Landa lost contact with the GC group on the main climb and was then alone on flat roads for several minutes. Pedersen and Mauri Vansevenant dropped back to help him, but the loss for the fifth placed rider was already in minutes. Hence, it came as a shock when the team decided to call back Cattaneo who was in the fight for the win and realistically speaking could do barely anything to support a struggling Landa who already had teammates helping him in the first place.
"The plan actually went very well. But sometimes you have bad days. Landa was struggling and so we had to change our plans," Pedersen admits. "A good situation suddenly became a bad situation, because we couldn't help him quickly. It was difficult to hear what was really going on with the radio.”
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Mattia Cattaneo forced by the sports director to wait for Mikel who is 3 minutes behind Roglic LOL 🤣🤣 Sorry but that's a big mistake, he still had a chance to win the stage and can't help Mikel much now... #LaVuelta24
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