MADRID, 11 Sep. (EUROPA PRESS) –
The Spanish cyclist Enric Mas (Movistar Team) stressed this Monday that there is “an obsession” to be on the podium of the 78th edition of the Vuelta a España, which would be the fourth of his career in the Spanish round, and that for In the last week he is going to try it “whatever.”
“Yes, there is an obsession with the podium. It is clear that being on the podium is both my personal and the team’s goal, so I don’t know if it will be with an attack from a distance or whatever, but the obsession with being on the podium is like that and we are going to try it,” Mas declared at a press conference during the rest day of the Spanish round.
Although he is only 1:22 from the podium, he is also clear that he is not going to make a “desperate” attack, and that if he attacks it is because both he and the car have “analyzed it well” and know that it can work. “It’s not worth it for us to go down to 15th position to try to put on a show and for it to be of no use,” he remarked.
Even though it is being an atypical Vuelta, in which on days that expect “a lot of war”, nothing happens, and on flat days when “nothing” should happen, everything shakes up, the man from Artá confesses that he has marked days. “The two from Asturias and the one from the mountains of Madrid, which I think we don’t take into account that day and it’s going to be a real battle,” he argued.
Enric Mas does not think that he is lacking “aggressiveness” because with the three Jumbo-Vismas ahead everything is “very difficult and yet both he and his rivals are trying. “We will see if this week the opportunity can be given. I look good, I see myself with ‘legs’ and we’ll start there,” he stressed.
In any case, despite the fact that because of his “runner profile” he sees a podium as “more valuable” than a special stage, because of “the confidence” that the team gives him and for representing it in the final in Madrid, he does not hide his enthusiasm for win at Angliru. “I think that a stage there would be super nice for both me and the team,” he remarked.
BELIEVES VINGEGAARD AND ROGLIC SHOULD BE GENEROUS TO KUSS
Regarding the Jumbo-Visma trio that leads the race with the American Sepp Kuss, the Dane Jonas Vingegaard and the Slovenian Primoz Roglic, he thinks that the Dutch team now has to “be a pineapple” and not do the “bestiality” of attacking each other. they. “Another thing could be that one day one of them slacks off and the other pushes forward, but I think that among them they are unfairly harsh for not doing those things,” he said.
For this reason, Mas rules out possible friction between the three because both Vingegaard and Roglic have won ‘big’ this year and for both Kuss it has been vital. “If I had won the Giro or the Tour this year, I would be more than happy if my last man on the mountain won the Vuelta,” he explained.
Although he feels the three are very strong, the Spaniard does consider that fatigue can affect them and in this case he is betting on Kuss who is “the one who has completed three grand tours.” “It’s a three-week race at the end of the season and there are two runners who have two ‘big ones’, another who has three and anything can happen,” he warned.
Furthermore, the race has been marked by the “bad day” of the Belgian Remco Evenepoel (Soudal Quick-Step) in stage 13, which for the Movistar Team cyclist is “a problem for him” because his team and sponsors depend on he. “Despite this, he has managed to overcome that bad day and turn his body and mind around. We have already seen that he is a real ‘crack’ and the war that is going to happen to us between now and the end of the race,” defended the Spaniard. about last year’s winner, who the day after his bad day, attacked and took the win.
Finally, the Spanish cyclist referred to his experience in the Movistar Team, in which although bad luck has accompanied him on occasion, with abandonments in the Tour de France, so far he has been able to adorn it with two podiums in the Vuelta and other striking results. “An athlete always likes to win. I think we haven’t had very bad seasons, but we can improve,” he concluded.