2025 Vuelta a Espana

[Yako]

I loved The Least Expected Day series. You can now find edited highlighted similars for many of the teams online. I wonder if we imbibe too much into our cycling superstars…Jonas had nothing to give today, yet despite not being able to overtake Joao in his pomp, lost only 4s, and retains 46s…he did enough, yet we expected more. If he needs to chat with his wife after the stage - who are we to argue with that? I wonder if the issue is Pogi. Alien/superhuman, raising the bar to an unbelievable high, yet removing the humanity from his wins? Seeing Pidcock drop Jonas, and today Joao beat him in a straight shootout, just makes these superhumans - more human?

 

[Rás Cnoic]

I loved The Least Expected Day series. You can now find edited highlighted similars for many of the teams online. I wonder if we imbibe too much into our cycling superstars…Jonas had nothing to give today, yet despite not being able to overtake Joao in his pomp, lost only 4s, and retains 46s…he did enough, yet we expected more. If he needs to chat with his wife after the stage - who are we to argue with that? I wonder if the issue is Pogi. Alien/superhuman, raising the bar to an unbelievable high, yet removing the humanity from his wins? Seeing Pidcock drop Jonas, and today Joao beat him in a straight shootout, just makes these superhumans - more human?

That's a very good point. When Jonas came along fresh from his market fish stall job(!) he was the great white hope of anyone, anyone being able to beat this extraordinary Pog. And this was in that frenzy where teams bought and bought every promising 21 year old on the planet in the hope of finding their own Pog. (Looking at you Ineos) For Jonas the pressure of being the only one who went toe to toe and beat him must be immense. And I guess before that crash I thought it looked 50 50 between them both with third place far behind in each grand tour. Now sadly for Jonas I don't know if he's on that level. I know we have over a week to go and a lot of big mountains left but I suspect Jonas thought he would have a bigger lead by now, that this wouldn't be as difficult (weakest of the grand tours etc). The post Tour fatigue might be hitting him hard. As an aside and as a fairly well built specimen myself, between Pog and Jonas, Jonas really looks feckin' emaciated! You'd think he'd get the bonk just by looking at the bike. Where he gets the stamina from I just don't know.

 

[Jeremy McCreary]

Jonas had nothing to give today, yet despite not being able to overtake Joao in his pomp, lost only 4s, and retains 46s…he did enough, yet we expected more.

Hear, hear!

Besides, lots of racing left. Maybe today was what a Vingegaard bad day looks like these days. For whatever reason, lots of Vuelta riders seem to be yo-yoing.