VIEW FROM THE TEAM CAR
Rik Van Slycke, DS, Deceuninck- QS
Delko’s José Díaz might have won the GC title thanks to his stage 5 win on the eight- stage race’s only mountain finish, but it was Deceuninck- Quick Step who dominated in Turkey, winning four of the seven bunch sprints through a rejuvinated Mark Cavendish.
It was always the team plan to have Mark try to get his first win of the season over there. We should have been happy with one victory, but the circumstances went in another direction and he was, for us, in very good shape. He was sprinting like before, in his way, from wheel to wheel and bam, he had the little last explosion like he had a few years ago - five, six, 10 years ago. He was also surprised that it went so well and that he could win four.
The first stage, we were well placed with Hodeg as his lead-out, and then suddenly the Polish champion from Bingoal came inside and they couldn’t make the corner and were pushed into the barriers. He did the sprint, to save as much as he could, but he felt he was really doing a good sprint, and that gave him confidence and the opportunity for the next day.
For us it was a little bit upside down.
Normally we have a few ProContinental teams coming into WorldTour races and now we were two, three WorldTour teams into their world. In the beginning it was a little bit chaotic, because their way of riding is different. Still, whatever happens they kept looking at us. It is very difficult to control a race with two, three riders. After the first stage, we were not the leader; we convinced the team in respect of the jersey they still had to pull if there was a breakaway, and we managed to keep everything together. Astana was there, and Alpecin with Philipsen, and they understand the system with the breakaway, how you get a bunch sprint.
This was a sprinters’ team. There was nobody for GC and stage 5 was the only stage we had nothing to do with. We also had Fabio, and we didn’t know how he was. So we focused completely on Cav.
There was a psychological battle going on at Itzulia Basque Country between Tadej Pogacar and Primož Roglic, played out via the proxy of their teams. Roglic led the race with a very strong ride in the opening time trial, and it looked, with a 20-second buffer on Pogacar, that Roglic could deploy Jumbo-Visma into defensive mode, control the race, and assume that their leader would not cede that much time on the final summit finish in Arrate. However, on day four, UAE Emirates slipped Brandon McNulty into a late break, along with Jonas Vingegaard from Jumbo, while Jumbo applied the brakes behind. McNulty went into the race lead, with Roglic now second and Vingegaard third, and it looked as if Jumbo had blundered. They’d gone from having their best rider in first place, to having to deal with a dangerous rival in first. However, McNulty has not quite achieved the consistency to match his occasional brilliance, yet UAE rode to defend him on the final day, instead of briefing Pogacar to watch Roglic and for the rest of the team to defend McNulty. When the American faltered, Pogacar was marooned with him, and Roglic infiltrated a dangerous break which put a minute into Pogacar and far more into McNulty. Pogacar made a spirited chase, but the effort that could possibly have gone into trying his luck at Arrate just went into a futile pursuit, while Roglic and Jumbo suddenly looked very astute.