La Vuelta a Espana: ‘You don’t just let Jonas Vingegaard sail up the road’ – Dan Lloyd puzzled by Jumbo-Visma rivals

Vingegaard was able to eat into the lead of his team-mate and holder of the red jersey, Sepp Kuss, as he was able to enjoy a relatively serene path to victory on the final climb up to Bejes, with seemingly little attention or effort from those riders behind him.

Instead, according to Lloyd, there appeared to be a lack of cooperation from those who have trailed Jumbo-Visma for most of the Vuelta.

Vingegaard finished 43 seconds clear of UAE Team Emirates’ Finn Fisher-Black on the day, as third went to Wout Poels (Bahrain Victorious). Primoz Roglic was eighth, and Kuss 10th.

Kuss now leads Vingegaard by 29 seconds in the GC, with Roglic one minute 33 behind the leader.

Speaking on The Breakaway on Eurosport after the stage, Lloyd began: “Jumbo-Visma are now in an even stronger position than they were.

“They’re still 1-2-3, Vingegaard is even closer to the lead, which means he’s put more time into all of their rivals.

“I just do not understand what their rivals were doing. I know they’ve got three riders to watch, which is almost an impossibility when they’re that good, but you’ve got Finn Fisher-Black second place on the day, he could have been helping behind to limit the gap to Vingegaard for [UAE team-mate] Juan Ayuso who is in fourth place overall in this race.

“I know it’s a long shot to finish on any step of the podium given their dominance, given the class of riders Jumbo-Visma have 1-2-3, but you’ve got to try.

“You don’t know if one of those three is going to have a bad day, and Ayuso could still finish third or second in this race. I’m not sure what was going on in terms of the complete lack of cooperation behind.

“You don’t just let Jonas Vingegaard – Tour de France winner – sail up the road.”

Blythe suggested that modern cyclists are not able to use their own experience to deal with challenges within stages.

He explained: “What baffles me, UAE have got a guy up the road, they don’t quite know where Finn Fisher-Black is.

“As much as I hate to say it, this modern generation are not really astute to bike riding.

“It looks to be that they’re waiting for instruction from the team car, to be like: ‘You need to go!’ rather than just thinking: ‘I definitely need to go.’”