It was another GC day in La Vuelta, as Jumbo-Visma controlled the breakaway and did not let it fight for a stage win. After Remco Evenepoel paced hard for most of the steep Xorret de Cati, Primož Roglič was able to outsprint him at the end of the hard stage.

Stage 8 started in the Alicante region, with the first part of the stage familiar to most of the riders as almost every team in the previous winter did at least one or two training camps in the area. Despite many good climbers forming a strong and large breakaway after Vall d’Ebo, it was going to be a GC day as Jumbo-Visma with the help of Groupama-FDJ worked hard before and did not let the gap grow too big.

Xorret de Cati has been used multiple times in La Vuelta and it is one of the steepest climbs in pro racing with a 500 metre section of 17.9%. Drafting still matters on 13%+ gradients but it is evidently not as significant as on 6-8% gradients. After the climb there was a three kilometre fast descent and sprint finish.

When the peloton arrived at the bottom of the climb the breakaway was almost caught. Emmanuel Buchmann before the climb did 3,418 kilojoules for 4:01 h, which is 14.58 kj/kg/h. A very high intensity for a mountain stage, especially in La Vuelta, as Jumbo-Visma were pacing hard on the early slopes with Jan Tratnik and Attila Valter. Jonas Vingegaard was sitting behind Valter, while Sepp Kuss was not used as a domestique as he has a three minute advantage over the big GC favourites and a great chance to take the red jersey from Lenny Martinez who was dropped early from the GC group. After Valter finished and Jumbo-Visma had no domestiques left, Quick-Step paced hard with Louis Vervaeke and Mattia Cattaneo as the last climbing domestique. It was not a good day for the slender Jan Hirt who was dropped early.

Quick-Step were confident in Remco Evenepoel, who accelerated early with 5.1 km to go, reducing the group to a handful of the best climbers. Kuss was feeling strong and later launched past Evenepoel who kept calm and was holding his tempo with Vingegaard and Roglič in his wheel. With them still in the group was Enric Mas, Juan Ayuso, while Joao Almeida, who crashed early on the stage, and Marc Soler were trying their best not to lose contact.

Evenepoel brought back Kuss slowly. When 400 metres were left in the climb Evenepoel upped the tempo and Kuss, Almeida and Soler could not keep up with the acceleration. Jumbo-Visma did not try to launch with Roglič and Vingegaard and let the Belgian champion do his own pace. The tempo was really hard and everyone was on the limit or very close to it.

Evenepoel did Xorret de Cati in 13 minutes, pushing 7.12 ᵉW/Kg into a headwind on the climb. According to our calculations, Mas, Vingegaard and Ayuso saved 0.07 ᵉW/Kg in the draft of Evenepoel whilst Roglič only saved 0.05 ᵉW/Kg, as he was half-wheeling Evenepoel most of the time and did not sit in the perfect draft.

This was the fastest ascent of Xorret de Cati since 2000, when the Banesto climber Eladio Jimenez in the first week did the climb in 12:42 min with 7.22 ᵉW/Kg. Wout Poels in 2016 won a Volta a Valencia stage on Xorret de Cati, but today was six seconds faster with 6.78 ᵉW/Kg, good enough for ninth on the stage.

Stage 6 brought the second mountain test of this Vuelta, with Remco Evenepoel losing some time on the steep Javalambre climb but narrowly remaining ahead of his main rivals in GC. Jumbo-Visma had a wonderful day, as Sepp Kuss won from a very strong breakaway and almost become the race leader whilst Primož Roglič and Jonas Vingegaard were the strongest from the GC group.

It was a hard 183 kilometre day with a steep finish up Alto de Javalambre (7.35 km, 9.52%). 4,000 metres of total elevation gain and hot weather made this a big GC day despite the solitary Category 1 climb.

In the first half of the stage, before the TV cameras were rolling, a huge breakaway formed with multiple fringe GC threats. Sepp Kuss, Lenny Martinez, Mikel Landa, Marc Soler, Wout Poels, Romain Bardet, Steff Cras, Hugh Carthy, Augusto Einer Rubio, Santiago Buitrago, David de la Cruz and many more strong names were in this star-packed breakaway all of whom on 2 minutes or less behind Evenepoel. Unfortunately Jay Vine crashed out of the race early and had to abandon La Vuelta, a big blow for UAE Team Emirates.

The breakaway gained enough lead to make one of the riders the new virtual race leader, the young French talent Lenny Martinez. He and Sepp Kuss were the favourites for the stage victory as they had not lost much time to Remco Evenepoel in the previous stages and showed great performance on the first climbing day in Andorra. Almost a four minute lead before the steep slopes was enough for them to gain multiple minutes over the top GC riders. Thymen Arensman in the GC group before Javalambre spent 4,153 kilojoules for 4:29h, which is 13.41 kj/kg/h. A hard day in the saddle but not too intense compared to a Grand Tour Queen stage like Col de la Loze this year in the Tour de France, where the riders raced at around 15 kj/kg/h before the final 10km from Meribel.

Meanwhile in the GC group, Soudal – Quick Step were not pacing particularly hard with Cattaneo, Vervaeke and Hirt in the train. They set a steady pace like INEOS (as Sky) did in the past, reducing the GC group to around 20 riders. However when Roglič accelerated from the group, Remco Evenepoel was distanced immediately, together with Geraint Thomas and it was clear that Quick-Step had been riding at a comfortable pace for the Belgian as he was not feeling particularly well on the day. Evenepoel crashed hard after his stage victory in Andorra and that might have cost him something in such an attritional stage.

With Roglič in front, Jonas Vingegaard had the luxury to draft behind Juan Ayuso, Enric Mas and Cian Uijtdebroeks who all were chasing the Slovenian. The Jumbo-Visma GC stars today unveiled their multiple leader strategy and it worked to great effect.

In the breakaway group it also was the Jumbo-Visma show, as Sepp Kuss accelerated and flew past everyone, untouchable after such a hard day and heading to his second La Vuelta stage victory. Lenny Martinez was the biggest threat for Kuss’ red jersey hopes as he worked with Romain Bardet in the second group.

While the cameras were showing Kuss and Roglič, Vingegaard bridged the gap to his Slovenian teammate with Mas on his wheel, whilst the Hungarian champion Attila Valter was waiting for them as a satellite rider to give a pull for a few minutes. Jumbo-Visma could not have wanted for more from the stage and they were absolutely dominating at this point.

After Valter finished his job, Roglič and Vingegaard were riding together without Mas on their wheel like in Trofeo Baracchi. Roglič looked stronger than Vingegaard who very likely is not in his Tour de France shape as it only finished over a month ago before La Vuelta whilst Roglič has had the ideal Vuelta preparation. In the end they seemed to lose time against their rivals in the last kilometre, as Juan Ayuso almost caught them and Uijtdebroeks and Mas were not far away. Evenepoel regained strength after getting dropped, like on the Sierra la Pandera stage in 2022,and did not lose even a minute in the end.

Sepp Kuss won from the breakaway but he slowed down a bit in the final metres and gave high fives to the crowd. Lenny Martinez finished 26 seconds behind in second place and beat Kuss’ by 8 seconds in the GC and became the new red jersey. Evenepoel lost only 32 seconds to Roglič and Vingegaard meaning he remains as the highest rider from the GC favourites with Mas, Vingegaard, Roglič, Ayuso, Uijtdebroeks and Almeida all being within 30 seconds. The gaps are still close and nothing is decided, just like last year when Evenepoel had a few bad days. Martinez and Kuss are almost 3 minutes ahead of the big GC riders but it will be hard for them both hold this gap with the 25 kilometre time trial on Stage 10 and many hard stages to come.

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The ᵉW/Kg were not high on Javalambre as Soudal-Quick Step did not pace it hard and Roglič attacked late in the climb. Roglič and Vingegaard pushed 6.32 ᵉW/Kg for 23:10 min on the steep part of the climb. Evenepoel did 6.18 ᵉW/Kg for 23:42, similar to the stage winner Kuss’ 6.12 ᵉW/Kg for 23:54. Miguel Angel Lopez in La Vuelta 2019 was 31 seconds faster than Roglič with 6.51 ᵉW/Kg on this climb, as Roglič on that stage lost 12 seconds to the flying Colombian. Kuss from the GC group in 2019 performed very well finishing together with Nairo Quintana and being faster by 21 seconds than from the breakaway in 2023.

Remco Evenepoel was victorious on the first mountain day at La Vuelta 2023, winning the sprint up the Arinsal climb. Perhaps due to the wind conditions, the climb was not paced particularly hard but several strong riders like Romain Bardet, Geraint Thomas and Egan Bernal still lost significant time.

After two rainy and chaotic days in Barcelona, for Stage 3 the peloton headed to the Pyrenees, passing two high altitude mountains in Andorra, Ordino and Arinsal. This would be the first real test for climbers and would reveal which GC riders arrived here in good shape. The pace on Ordino was already high, with 5.20 ᵉW/Kg for 40 minutes and 5.70 ᵉW/Kg at the end on the steep part which is really high watts for high altitude and the second last climb. This hard tempo was enough to drop the red jersey Andrea Piccolo and fatigue many of the riders.

The final test on Arinsal was going to be hard – the first time the climb is used in a high level race. 8.2 km at 7.8% with the steepest parts in the second half of the climb to 1,900 metres altitude. INEOS GC hope Thymen Arensman spent 3,535 kilojoules before the final ascent. 12.57 kj/kg/h for 4:05 hours is a moderate pace but riders definitely felt the effort on Ordino where the intensity was much higher than the average for the rest of the stage up to that point. Unfortunately there was a headwind on Arinsal and no particular team set a hard tempo on the initial slopes, with Jumbo-Visma, UAE, Bora-Hansgrohe and Soudal – Quick Step fighting to be on the front at the start. Halfway into the climb Jay Vine began to set a high tempo after which his teammate Juan Ayuso accelerated, followed by Vingegaard. The Tour de France champion’s teammate Sepp Kuss immediately counterattacked, only to be followed by Marc Soler. With these accelerations Lennard Kämna from the early breakaway had come into sight and now the GC riders were interested in winnnig the stage.

In the end Remco Evenepoel accelerated early, around 200m from the finish before multiple bends. The Belgian had reconned the climb and made his second YouTube video about it. He knew about the twisty corners in the end which was an advantage for the front rider. Evenepoel celebrated his third La Vuelta stage win and became the leader of the race. INEOS had a terrible day as Bernal and Thomas lost 47 seconds and finished out of the top 20, while their best rider was Arensman, finished 21 seconds behind Evenepoel in 15th position.

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The watts were not particularly high even when adjusting for the high altitude of the climb. Evenepoel did Arinsal in 23:02 min with 6.03 ᵉW/Kg which is 6.41 ᵉW/Kg normalised to sea level. The rest of the GC riders did around 6.02 ᵉW/Kg who finished in the Top 10. Thomas and Bernal pushed only 5.80 ᵉW/Kg – Bernal since Alto Colorado in January and Thyon 2000 in April has not made a big improvement in his ᵉW/Kg game.

After finishing second on Col de la Loze, the American climber Matthew Riccitello performed impressively in the Tour de l’Avenir Stage 7a mountain time-trial, beating his opponents by at least 40 seconds and extending his lead in the GC.

The mountain time-trial went up the Karellis climb with regular gradients at 8.1%. The riders did it after a short but hard Col de la Loze stage yesterday. It was one of the rare days when there were two stages in a single day – following the mountain time-trial the riders did a 70 kilometre climbing stage.

Those who performed well on Col de la Loze were also the fastest up Karellis. The yellow jersey Matthew Riccitello, after losing to Isaac del Toro, beat everyone by a decent margin in the rainy time-trial, winning his first Tour de l’Avenir stage. The only American to win the race overall was Greg LeMond who dominated in the 1982 edition.

Davide Piganzoli and Isaac de Toro, who both finished in the top 3 on Loze lost 40 and 46 seconds, while everyone else lost at least a minute. The Norwegian Embret Svestad-Bårdseng made the biggest progress compared Col de la Loze and from those who finished Top 10 in the time-trial. Svestad-Bårdseng finished 15th on Loze and jumped to the sixth place on Karellis. The 20-year-old Norwegian is without a contract for the next season after his team Human Powered Health announced that they will likely fold as the new sponsor for 2024 has not been found.

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Riccitello pushed 6.31 ᵉW/Kg for 31:31 min, which is a good performance for a time-trial but not exceptional considering the riders perform completely fresh. Piganzoli, Del Toro, Pelizzari and Lecerf were the only other riders who produced 6.00 ᵉW/Kg or more in the rainy time-trial. All the riders who finished the ITT in the top 10 still are quite young and will be eligible to ride Tour de l’Avenir also next year as none of them are a fourth year U23 rider.

In the 2010 Tour de l'Avenir mountain time-trial Nairo Quintana did a similar performance. At that time the 20 year-old Colombian did 6.31 ᵉW/Kg for 32:30 min on Station de Risoul, beating everyone except Andrew Talansky by more than a minute. The Station de Risoul average altitude is 300 metres higher than Karellis but the Riccitello performance is not far from Quintana's.

Despite Riccitello's strong performance in the morning, he was unable to fend off numerous attacks from the impressive Del Toro and pair of Italians on the Col d'Iseran and its descent later in the afternoon. With the group of Italians and Del Toro distancing the small Riccitello with 60km of mostly downhill and shallow gradients remaining, Riccitello not only lost the GC lead but even his podium position, losing 2:52 on the final day.

The Mexican climber Isaac del Toro has performed consistently in the 2023 season, but today in the Tour de l’Avenir he won the first real mountain test against some of the best climbers of his age, even beating Israel Premier-tech’s Matthew Riccitello in the final few metres.

It was a fairly easy day for the riders before the mighty Col de la Loze, the same side used in the 2020 Tour when Miguel Angel Lopez destroyed Primož Roglič and Tadej Pogačar on steep ramps at high altitude. The Colombian climbers present this year, Pinzon and Pescador, had lost two minutes before the first real mountain stage because of the team time-trial where the team finished 26th out of 27 teams. Their team paced hard through Meribel, and their efforts paid off, when many riders, including the race leader from Denmark, Simon Dalby got dropped with 10 km to go.

Col de la Loze is a hard climb with 23.3 km at a 7.3 % average gradient but the hardest and steepest ramps are in the second part of the climb. With 7 km to go after a few cursory attacks there were left only 8 riders in the leading group. Colombian Edgar Andres Pinzon whose teammates were now dropped after working hard on the climb, Italians Davide Pellizzari and Giulio Piganzoli, William Junior Lecerf, Frenchman Matthys Rondel, Matthew Riccitello (the only rider with a Grand Tour experience) and two Mexican talents Isaac del Toro and Jose Ramon Muñiz.

With 4 km to go Del Toro began to set his own pace and only the professionals Riccitello and Piganzoli could follow. In the end it was a tight battle between the American and the Mexican, with Del Toro winning on the top of the mighty Col de la Loze. Del Toro is only 19 years-old and a second year U23 rider. He was the youngest rider in the final eight group and still is without a contract for the next season but after this performance there will be many WorldTour teams interested in signing him. Del Toro already finished 10th in the Peace Race, 10th in Sibiu Tour and 3rd in Valle d’Aosta – Mont Blanc early this year.

Thanks to a good performance in the team time-trial by the US team Riccitello becomes the new leader of Tour de l’Avenir with Del Toro moving up to the third position, being 26 seconds behind the American. Tomorrow there will be two stages, a hard mountain time-trial in the morning up Les Karellis (11.1 km, 8.0%) and later in the day a 70 km mountain road stage.

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Despite it being one of the easiest mountain stages with less than 1,000 kilojoules spent before the climb, with 5 stages already in the legs this was no an easy day. Isaac del Toro climbed up Col de la Loze in 62:31 min pushing 5.65 ᵉW/Kg. Miguel Angel Lopez in the 2020 Tour did it in 60:45 min, with eight riders in 2020 climbing Loze faster than Del Toro and Riccitello. It is a high altitude climb and the performance is 5.97 ᵉW/Kg when normalised to sea level. Even if the stage before the climb was not hard it is still a very impressive performance for U23 riders, particularly the teenage Del Toro.

The final stage of Vuelta a Burgos was extremely similar to the third Picon Blanco stage, with UAE-Emirates star climber Adam Yates aggressive but failing to break Primož Roglič. The Slovenian is clearly in good shape before his fifth consecutive Vuelta a Espana.

The steep gradients on Lagunas de Neila offered a good chance for Adam Yates to try to drop Primož Roglič, as the last 4 kilometres of the climb averaged 11% gradient. The stage before the climb was not particularly hard. Euskaltel-Euskadi climber Joan Bou spent 2,687 kilojoules for 3:53 hours before the steep part of the climb. That is only 11.33 kj/kg/h, a fairly low intensity, but the whole stage was at around 1000 metres above sea level on the Burgos plateau and it was a very hot day as always the case in August in Spain.

Jumbo-Visma could rest their mountain guys as the pressure was on UAE-Emirates to drop Roglič to gain time or win the stage. With Domen Novak, George Bennett and Jay Vine doing their best, the peloton was quickly decimated until Roglič, Yates, Vlasov and Vine were left in the leading group. Adam Yates attacked with 2.6 km to go and tried his best to challenge Roglič but the Slovenian was strong enough to follow without any issues. Similarly to the Picon Blanco ascent, Jay Vine returned to the trio as the pace slowed down but as he did under the flamme rouge, Yates again attacked and did the most pulling out of the GC leaders.

Yates’ efforts were not enough to drop Vlasov or Roglič, with the Slovenian winning another uphill sprint, securing his 76th and 77th pro victory and the 20th GC win of his career. Roglič has not lost a stage race in 2023 but La Vuelta against Remco Evenepoel, Juan Ayuso, Geraint Thomas, Joao Almeida and teammate Jonas Vingegaard should be his hardest challenge this year.

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As was the case on Stage 3, Yates did more work in the headwind than his rivals. The UAE-Emirates climber did 6.63 ᵉW/Kg for 14:34 min on the steep part of the climb. It was the second-fastest ascent of Lagunas de Neila, only losing to the mythical performance of Jose Maria Jimenez in 1998 who did it in 14 minutes. As we calculated only the steep part of the climb, the performance does not look incredible on the power x duration curve. However there was three warm up kilometres which were paced very hard by UAE-Emirates which would surely have had some fatiguing effect before they turned left onto the steep narrow final four kilometres. Despite not being in the Alps, Sierra Nevada or the Pyrenees, the final 15 minutes of Lagunas de Neila is also quite high, with the average altitude being 1,638 metres above sea level.

The first climbing day in Vuelta a Burgos ended with a customary Primož Roglič victory, after UAE paced Picon Blanco hard to set a good time on the tough climb. Vuelta a Burgos is a preparation race for the upcoming Vuelta a Espana for many riders, including Roglič and Jay Vine.

Picon Blanco has been used multiple times in recent years, both in Vuelta a Burgos and La Vuelta as a mountain top finish. This year irregular climb crested 36 kilometres from the finish, making the racing more interesting with tactics playing some role. Primož Roglič came into the stage with a handsome 34-second lead over Adam Yates and UAE-Emirates after Jumbo-Visma won yesterday’s team time-trial. This meant Roglič could defend and UAE would need to be more aggressive early in this stage if they wanted to upset Roglič’ position on GC.

Picon Blanco is a steep enough climb to make gaps but it is almost impossible to drop a fresh Primož Roglič in Spanish heat, especially in a straight headwind. Adam Yates attacked early after his teammates George Bennett and Jay Vine had pulled hard, but his first attempt was unsuccessful. Roglič and Yates returned to Vine’s wheel, with Australian continuing to work for his team leader who was recently third in the Tour de France.

Aleksandr Vlasov and Damien Howson later come back as the tempo was not high enough in the last three kilometres of the climb. Near the top of Picon Blanco Yates attacked again but Roglič and the king of 2.1 stage races Damien Howson remained on his wheel. The latter two climbed Picon Blanco in 25:21 minutes with 6.20 ᵉW/Kg whilst Yates did a little bit more work in the wind and did 6.22 ᵉW/Kg. Vine who had spent himself working for Yates and Vlasov followed them 21 seconds later. Pavel Sivakov and Miguel Angel Lopez did the same version of Picon Blanco in the previous edition of Vuelta a Burgos 24 seconds slower than Yates, Roglič and Howson.

Remco Evenepoel returned to San Sebastian to warm up for the Glasgow World Championships, taking his third Donostia San Sebastian Klasikoa title, the race in 2019 where he won his first World Tour race. Evenepoel attacked early from the peloton with 73 km to go and won the final two-up sprint against Pello Bilbao.

Remco Evenepoel won the race both in 2019 and 2022 and with a 100% hit rate he was the big favourite in 2023. In the 2023 edition the mighty Erlaitz climb (4 km, 10.4%) was included earlier than in 2022, with Mendizorrotz (4.1 km, 7.3%) and Murgil (2.1 km, 9.8%) following after that. Evenepoel launched very near to the top of Erlaitz probably surprising most of the peloton, and perhaps his team car, with 73 km to go. Only Pello Bilbao, Aleksandr Vlasov and Alberto Bettiol made the split, with Romain Bardet and Nathan van Hooydonck waiting for the Remco group as they were in the early breakaway.

The pace on Erlaitz was not high, Evenepoel doing 6.32 ᵉW/Kg for 13:21 min (85 seconds slower than 2022 effort where Evenepoel went clear to win the race). But the fast acceleration in the final metres was enough to reduce the peloton to only a few riders.

The teams in the peloton were not able to catch the leading group. Evenepoel continued to dominate, and after Mendizorrotz only Bilbao and Vlasov were left. The World Champion did 7.06 ᵉW/Kg for 9:14 min, while Felix Gall who missed the Erlaitz move, was seven seconds slower from the peloton.

On the final Murgil climb, Evenepoel returned to his customary pacing, and 6.91 ᵉW/Kg for 6:18 min was enough to drop Vlasov but Bilbao stuck on the world champion’s wheel. There will not be any climbs at the World Championships in Glasgow of the severity in San Sebastian, but Evenepoel is clearly in good shape one week before his title defence.

Evenepoel has improved his sprint since in his early years and comfortably beat Bilbao (who surprisingly took the lead) in the final 200 metres. Evenepoel confirms his status as one of the best one-day riders in the world, even though he does not ride that many of them. He has won five consecutive World-Tour level races – 2x Liege Bastogne-Liege, 2x San Sebastian, 1x World Championships.

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Demi Vollering was finally unleashed in the mountains today, delivering an incredibly strong climbing performance on the Tourmalet to secure the yellow jersey before the final stage in Tour de France Femmes avec Zwift 2023. Not even the reigning World Champion and winner of all three Grand Tours Annemiek van Vleuten could challenge Vollering.

It was the only mountain stage in the 2023 Tour whilst in the inaugural 2022 edition there were two mountain stages, albeit both less difficult than the combination of Aspin and Tourmalet. Last year Annemiek van Vleuten dominated on both climbing days and was far ahead of everyone else but in 2023 the World Champion has not been as dominant in one-day races nor the climbs. She was dropped on Covadonga by Vollering in La Vuelta, but still won the race overall thanks to earlier time gains and also won the Giro Donne, in the absence of Vollering.

Van Vleuten attacked early on the Col d’Aspin but it was not as easy as in the 2022 Tour and Katarzyna Niewiadoma, and Demi Vollering stayed on her wheel. Vollering refused to do any work and waited for the Tourmalet, while Niewiadoma took a chance and went solo on the descent.

Col du Tourmalet is a very hard climb compared to those typically included in women’s races, which would surely make huge gaps in the GC. The second part of the climb is very difficult with gradients ranging from 8-10% in every kilometre and high altitude. Niewiadoma worked hard when going solo but the shallow beginning of the Tourmalet did not help her when Reusser was chasing for Vollering behind.

Van Vleuten and Vollering were caught by the yellow jersey group of Kopecky, Moolman, Labous, Ludwig, Spratt and Santesteban. The pace was not as high as it could be on the early slopes and it helped Niewiadoma to fight for the GC podium. The big question was when Vollering would attack.

Shortly after Labous accelerated with 6 km to go, Vollering finally launched and not even Van Vleuten could challenge her. The SD Worx leader quickly caught Niewiadoma who was incredibly strong, despite being solo for a long time. Vollering lost La Vuelta due to a mid stage nature break but in the Tour she was too strong for anyone and the questionable team tactics in the earlier stages did not matter as she had the best legs in the peloton by a mile.

Vollering for the whole Tourmalet did 5.13 ᵉW/Kg for 53:42 min which is an all time great performance for a long altitude climb. But the most impressive about her effort were the last six kilometres. Vollering pushed 5.58 ᵉW/Kg for the final 21 minutes of the climb at an average altitude of 1842 metres – putting 2:34 min into Van Vleuten. Normalising this attack section to sea level power, it would be 6.01 ᵉW/Kg for 21 minutes.

With the Col d’Aspin in the legs, Vollering did one of the greatest if not the greatest climbing performance we have in our database for women’s cycling. Vollering in La Vuelta was impressive on La Covadonga with 5.35 ᵉW/Kg for 31:01 min but this a much higher level. Gaia Realini was able to follow Vollering on Covadonga and would have been well suited for Tourmalet but was not selected for the Lidl-Trek team.