Leopard Trek rider Jakob Fuglsang has previously ridden Grand Tour races in support of others, backing Andy Schleck in the past two editions of the Tour de France. He is showing his own abilities in this year’s Vuelta a España, though, placing sixth in Monday’s stage ten time trial and moving up to second in the general classification.
Fuglsang will start Wednesday’s eleventh stage a slender twelve seconds off the race lead of Chris Froome (Sky Procycling) and, like rivals Janez Brajkovic plus last year’s winner Vincenzo Nibali, will seek to move up the general classification in the mountain stages ahead.
“My performance is better than I expected,” he admitted after the 47 kilometre race against the clock, drawing encouragement by his near miss in taking the red jersey of race leader. “I went really well in the first part and not so good in the second part. Until the Roman bridge at the entrance of town, I did an almost perfect time trial.
“I got information from Fabian Cancellara who started slow and from Stuart O’Grady who started fast, so we knew from Fabian’s time compared to Tony Martin’s that he didn’t go fast enough at the beginning. I was a bit scared of the distance.”
Fuglsang covered the 47 kilometres in a time one minute 37 off that of Tony Martin; it’s a considerable gap, but Martin won’t be a factor in the mountains. When compared to the GC contenders ahead of him, he gave up 38 seconds to Froome and just 15 to Wiggins; that plus his proximity to the red jersey suggests the next few days could be very interesting ones.
The rider who finished two places behind him in the time trial, Janez Brajkovic (RadioShack), might have been expected to have done better than eighth. However he felt the route wasn’t ideal for his characteristics, and that he is still on course to aim for a top three overall finish in the race. He’s now ninth overall, two minutes 24 seconds off Froome’s time.
“This is not the type of course I like the most for time trialling. I preferred the one of the Tour de France but unfortunately, I didn’t do it [due to the crash that took him out of the race on stage 5 – ed.],” he said. “The last section was hard because of the wind but I remained focused and efficient. I feel that I have good legs and I believe that I can fight for the final podium of the Vuelta.”
Last year’s champion Vincenzo Nibali wasn’t as close to Martin as Fuglsang and Brajkovic were, the Italian dropping 2 minutes 24 seconds to the stage winner. He’s now 31 second back in fourth place overall. However he was actually very pleased with how things went.
“It was a really difficult time trial with a lot of wind. To lose more or less one minute to Wiggins who is a world class specialist is what I was hoping for,” the Liquigas-Cannondale rider said. “I’ve always done well at time trials but the time I’ve clocked today is really good. I can look at the remaining stages with optimism.”
All of the riders will enjoy Tuesday’s rest day, using the time to regain some strength, and will knuckle down again on Wednesday. The battle for race leadership in the days ahead is going to be a fierce one and while there can only be one winner, each of those will believe that they can be a big factor in the final overall result.