Jumbo-Visma will want to have ‘cake and eat it’ – Dan Lloyd on possible Vuelta a Espana podium clean sweep

Such is Jumbo-Visma’s dominance of the Vuelta a Espana, Eurosport expert Dan Lloyd thinks the team could be starting to dream of a clean sweep of the podium.

“I think as we edge closer to Madrid, we’ve only got five stages left, two of which are sprints, they [Jumbo-Visma] might be starting to think, ‘Should we have our cake and eat it? It would be nice to finish with all three of us on the podium’,” Lloyd said on The Breakaway.

“I mean first and foremost their aim is to win this race. It has been probably for the whole year. The main goal is Tour de France, before that came the Giro which they’d already won with Primoz Roglic, after that sent a really strong squad to this race, the Vuelta a Espana.

“They couldn’t have imagined it would play out quite as well as it has for them. No sickness, I think Roglic had a small crash but nothing that really affected him, Sepp Kuss being ‘allowed up the road’ and taking the red jersey with that, showing no signs of weakness and relinquishing it even to his own team-mates.

“The other point is that they’ve not lost a single rider. They’ve still got eight in this race, so whilst they’ve got three riders to protect, they’ve got five very, very strong riders to do the protecting.

“And the mountain stages that we’ve still got to come, in general are quite short so it makes it easier to control amongst those five riders.”

Lloyd also singled out UAE Team Emirates for praise for their commitment to the cause as they try to cut into Jumbo-Visma’s advantage out front.

Juan Ayuso and Marc Soler sit fourth and sixth in the GC respectively and Lloyd insists they are still in podium contention.

Lloyd said: “Obviously the riders behind them, the four Spaniards you just talked about: Ayuso, [Enric] Mas, [Mikel] Landa and one I’ve forgotten, they want to get on that third step or second step of the podium. Ideally win it but that’s looking like a forlorn hope for most of them at the moment.

“They’ve been trying UAE [Team Emirates], they did it again today when it was all spread out across the road after all the attacking in the opening part of the stage, they were still trying with Soler, [Joao] Almeida, Ayuso just monitoring things behind, so they haven’t given up hope now but the further we get into this the more beaten they’re going to feel.”