Mikel Landa Crumbles In Vuelta a España 2024 Stage 18: EF's Masterstroke

2024 WTA with the last two big mountain stages to come Friday and Saturday before the Sunday TT and maybe many wouldn't have expected big moves here today in stage 18 I'm here just outside of my stew up here in the natural park of ESI deep in the bass country where uku bed won from a massive Escape winning for the second division Kern Pharma team bagging their third win in this 2024 Edition and I can tell you there were some changes in the general classification fight behind namely Mikel Landa dropping five spots in the overall classification and I'll get to that and I'll explain how this stage involved Extinction and superglue but first let's talk about this massive Escape 42 Riders on the day when it Formed almost every team was represented but to cathlon the lead team with Ben o Conor in the red jersey inner Marche and escuel lucotti were racing in their home region they missed out big time that move was taking off and no one was going to stop it some counter moves behind with the Scotty Riders tried to get across nothing was successful in that move we saw three men try to get away and that included Schmid it included K it included vachek all three of those Riders didn't have teammates in that massive group but in that massive group there were numbers D cathlon didn't have Riders but second place overall Primus RL had three Riders up there and Moss Enrique Moss setting third place overall mov star his team had two Riders and crucially Richard caras who sets fourth place overall he also had two Riders up there James Shaw and oan duel now we get rolling onto this stage the categorized two climb and the categorized one climb before the finish here in the natural park now that categorized one climb it blew things apart we saw an attack from sugarm man Carlos Rodriguez we saw an attack from Salt Bay David gadu from groupama fdj and then the attack came from the Ecuadorian Rider former Jalia winter from EF education Richard caras and at that time the cameras look back we saw Mikel Landa on the ropes and then we saw right there as well Ben o Conor on the ropes as well but Mikel Landa was in trouble Ben o Conor would get back to the group no problemo and I spoke with Primos RIT at the Finish if he thought about setting his Red Bull troops to the front at that point to put Ben o Conor in some danger but he said ah there's some hard days to come no not today but EF education you could see they had a plan and they were ready to school the riders with their Riders up front Shaw and duel they dropped back and they had to wait some time for the GC group to catch him they dropped back to join the attacks Richard caros was on a ripper and while he was dropping a rider who was already behind him in the G GC but EF education was hoping really to school the whole GC bunch and really crack the whole General classification wide open because who knows it's only 5 Seconds difference between RIT and race leader Ben o Conor and his tightly packed there when we're looking at third to Fourth and so on with Richard Cara sitting fourth place overall at the start of the day so Riders were scattered all over the road and Mikel Landa was losing out big time and many of us are scratching our heads while Landa who had Riders up in front katano and Casper Pon they didn't drop those Riders back earlier on T-Rex Quick Step to help out their race leader eventually Casper Pon would get back there but katano would stay up there for some time they were helping out Mikel Landa but Landa well his welta classification hopes he was setting fifth overall at the start of the day they were going up and smoke and up front well it was going to be a fight from that classification group because they had enough time in hand to fight for it 13 is unlucky for some riders in the pelaton but that was the lucky Escape number when we were heading in to that final kicker that topped out around 3 kilomet to go not a classified climb but dang this tour of Spain is littered with unclassified climbs all along and on that climb we saw Steven cwick lighted up the Dutch Rider from Team visma Lisa bike it didn't come to nothing but countered right away from ber now that team had three rers ERS in there also P Miguel and Pablo Casto Casto already winning two stages in this walta Spa they had a fourth Rider in there earlier on but he was no longer there so they had the numbers in that 13-man move and they needed to make it work out and that's crazy to think for a second division team well there we go butter a day up the road and no one was going to catch him again when he topped over that climb heading to the final kilometer as it is always in cycling Riders are looking around and no one's wanting to do the work we Tu to Schmid the Swiss Champion writing for Jay Kula afterwards and he says at some point everybody just starts thinking about the Sprint for second place and that's what Schmid did otherwise up front well it was bered celebrating a victory his first ever professional Victory and it's a massive massive for him he comes from Nara nearby and that's of course the base of the current farma team second division team winning three stages so far in this W spia you might be as surprised as I am because they're beating World Tour team teams with massive big budgets three five times as much teams that include inos grenadiers who need a stage Victory Bahrain Victorious who need a stage Victory and they're winning three they're taking home three stage wins it's impressive it's incredible behind we had Mikel Landa fighting to save himself but he couldn't do it coming in here to the Finish Line the GC remained the same except for Mikel Landa losing around 3 and A2 minutes on the day falling from Fifth Place overall all to deep 10th Place overall and the real burner here is that it happened on home soil he's bask riding in the bass country and I spoke with him this morning and he says that he's motivated by the bass fans out there with their red white and green is Scotty Flags waving and cheering them on but today none of those cheers none of those flags could do anything to help Mikel land who lost three and a half minutes on the day and Shaw and du what massive work they did for rich or caras really blowing things up and making a heck of a race out of stage 18 and remember I said that we talk about Extinction and superglue well for the WTA espa sudall quickstep renamed their team T-Rex quickstep because here in Spain they have a local product associated with their companies named T-Rex which is a superglue and well like the dinosaur today Mikel landas hopes for the GC became extinct and no amount of superglue could keep him intact in the GC battle this stage 18 Kar Pharma with their third stage victory in the valalta with ber and EF education with Richard caros schooling everyone