Chapter 431 - 208: The King of Steep Slopes, Invincible When Unleashing Power

On August 24th, at 2:00 PM local time, after the customary ceremonial ride, Stage 8 officially began.

Typically, on a stage like this one—with only two climbs and terrain more akin to rolling hills—the General Classification contenders would usually let the breakaway group have it.

However, during a breakaway in Stage 6, O’Connor had clawed back time, bringing himself to within just two seconds of the Red Jersey.

So, everyone knew full well that the Red Bull Bora Team couldn’t afford to let a breakaway succeed again on this stage.

At the same time, the other GC teams, such as UAE Team, Vismar, and Ineos, saw how close the first and second-place riders were in the overall standings. With their own leaders so far behind, they certainly wouldn’t continue to conserve energy and would instead take the initiative to attack.

If they didn’t find an opportunity to close the gap soon, their deficit in the General Classification would only grow larger.

Even so, seven riders still chose to go on the attack today.

Among them, notably, was the breakaway veteran Oier Lascano from the Movistar Team.

After arriving at the Tour of Spain, the guy had finally taken the initiative.

In addition to him, the group included Luca Vegliato of the Alpecin Team, Harold Tejada of the Astana Team, Mauro Schmid of the Jieke Team, Mathis Le Berre of the Arkéa Team, Ion Izagirre of the Cofidis Team, and Sam Ooman of the Trek Team.

The overall strength of this breakaway group was relatively average; in any case, they posed no threat to Huang Chong.

Even if one of them managed to win the stage from the breakaway, none were close enough to actually take the Red Jersey from him.

Right now, his only real rival was O’Connor.

The time gap to O’Connor was negligible. If Huang Chong let him get into another breakaway, losing the lead was a foregone conclusion.

But these were World Tour Teams. While their strength might vary due to different budgets, no team director was a fool.

For instance, every team had witnessed O’Connor’s strength firsthand in Stage 6. They certainly wouldn’t let him extend his lead in the GC any further.

"Huang, do you see? This is the advantage of having let O’Connor close the time gap in the previous stages.

His time is now generally about three minutes or more ahead of the other teams’ leaders.

Faced with such a large deficit, the other GC teams can’t possibly just sit back and watch."

"From now on, just stick with the leaders of the other teams. Save your energy for the final climb."

After the race began, although there were only two officially categorized climbs, the route was filled with many short, uncategorized ascents.

The stages of the Vuelta a España are like that—truly flat roads are rare, and the route is almost always undulating.

So, on the short climbs right after the start, O’Connor, having tasted success in Stage 6, naturally tried to break away again.

But today, the peloton’s reaction was completely different from two days ago.

Whenever O’Connor accelerated, another team would come to the front, taking turns to control the peloton and chase him down, refusing to let him get away.

This repeated back-and-forth undoubtedly proved one thing: everyone was sending a clear message to O’Connor and the Decathlon Team—’Don’t even think about gaining an advantage from a breakaway again.’

Of course, the other riders in the breakaway were not happy to see the peloton chasing O’Connor.

It meant that their own lead was being constantly worn down by the chase.

Fortunately, O’Connor knew what was happening. Seeing that the other teams had no intention of letting him go, he obediently dropped back into the peloton and resumed a normal pace.

With his return to the main group, the breakaway riders were naturally allowed to go free.

However, just as Aldag had predicted, the peloton today was no longer letting the Red Bull Bora Team leisurely control the pace.

This became especially clear when the peloton reached the stage’s second-category climb. Israel-Premier Tech and the Bahrain Victory Team went straight to the front and began setting a furious pace, attempting to drop the two GC leaders, O’Connor and Huang Chong.

But Huang Chong had been able to steadily match the pace set by Wen Bo and his counterpart on brutal Tour de France mountain stages—the kind with two HC Level climbs or three or four First Category Climbs. The effort required for this climb was certainly not enough to affect him.

He himself was fine, but seeing his domestiques being worn down like this was certainly putting them under pressure.

This was especially true for Martínez, who, despite finishing second overall in this year’s Giro d’Italia, was in terribly poor form.

Martínez hadn’t made any impact in the previous stages; on the contrary, he had lost a massive amount of time on the concrete-paved climb in Stage 4 and was now far behind in the GC.

For a GC team in a Grand Tour, it is best to have only one designated Core Commander. This allows for the clearest tactical execution.

But having multiple domestiques who can also place in the top ten of the General Classification, like the UAE Team in the Tour de France, is undoubtedly the ideal scenario.

In that situation, even if the team leader is being tightly marked, you can send a high-ranking domestique to join an attack or a breakaway.

This forces the leaders of other teams to chase your domestique, making them expend unnecessary energy.