TERRIBLE Tactics: Quickstep Abandon Mikel Landa | Vuelta a Espana 2024 Stage 18

what started as a breakaway stage with no GC action quickly turned into absolute chaos one of the most crazy and important stages of the Welter so far actually from Victoria Gast to M paral isi stage 18 we have the Puerto de erera which is 5 1 half K 8.5% it's far from the Finish though 45 K from the finish with no categorized climbs afterwards who's going to try anything there for GC so a big Breakaway goes most teams represented except usal tells so they have to try and Bridge across but we've got familiar faces Schmid Kung maxp katano is also in there three Kern farmer including double winner Casto they're allowed to go to kathon don't care and the fugas Zilla fuga begin the uh Swiss K and Schmid go with vek trying to get a lead on this group that's so big it's not really working and then I'm thinking is anyone going to cook something up surely no one's going to cook something up 7 Minutes one climb left what are EF going to do they Happ with where caraz is but on that climb it's about 5 and 1 half K it's pretty steep in paths although it is a big road it's not a goat track katano just starts to shred he's been one of the strongest riders in the Pelton GC group dormant barard and K Farmer they try to play their numbers they got po Mel there who's a fast Sprinter and they try to make it hard so takes the km points he now leads Vine by one point in that competition all of a sudden EF like what are you Lads doing where are you going so P's pacing almost takes it caraz by surprise Sweeney has to bring him back OK Conor's looking good now remember they're 10 minutes behind the the Breakaway so it's not 500 M left for them they're almost at the start of that climb and Landa and cous are in trouble Lander's starting the day in fourth in GC and he's been climbing better than caraz mostly during the Welter he's gone carapaz then takes over from sepa and he's got it down to four guys so Conor looking pretty solid this is the top four on GC excluding Mikel Lander lipitz comes back so Rish has got support land is quickly on 35 seconds not looking good at all Liber Vitz attacks because he thought Carlos Rodriguez was struggling but then Caro says I can attack two in the white jersey skel as it follows him I'm like where are you guys going to go as you can see in the in the break away it's a plateau afterwards and there's no climb they all sort of stop I was exp ing that maybe in the GC group caras throws in one big dig I don't think he was trying to drop Landa he was trying to drop a Conor who's ahead of all of them on GC obviously he's in the red jersey and he does so right at the end of the Puerto de errera which wasn't that hard to climb it was a cat one but I I don't think anyone expected it to be this impactful Al sing where are you going to go caraz I mean land he might struggle to come back but all of a sudden there's two EF education easy post Riders wedding du and James Shaw tactical masterclass from EF they planned this very very clearly and they executed it to Perfection one of the best uses of satellite Riders from the Breakaway you'll see this year and the group behind skelos is panicking he's sprinting across on a little kicker he gets across that goup O Connor he's lucky he's got teammates he's got two probably from the Breakaway because Canal starts pulling the other GC contenders smell blood in the water Bora don't pull with lip ofits even though Connor off the back which is kind of kind of strange but uh anyway I guess they know they're going to take the red jersey probably tomorrow and godo's pulling with pasz so you've got three or four teams working luckily for a Conor in this corner they just come back at the end of The Descent with Rodriguez as well but that's still no help from where's Mikel Lander he was 35 seconds back on top of the climb he's on this flat Plateau now on his own 60 kilo pure climb and not the most arogar in the world where's his teammates he had three in the Breakaway one of them's in the GC group with oconor and rogl Casper Peterson's waiting in that group I was like mate you you should probably drop back land is a minute 50 back he lost a minute Plus on that descent which isn't surprising I mean he was pulling against Classics Riders Pon sitting on the back of this group there's also Mar van s not just in the middle he's been dropped from the Breakaway katano is in the Breakaway and is like the PowerHouse idin is their best rer to pull Lander back he's pulling there but he's 10 minutes ahead of Lander on the road and now inos are pulling EF has still got numbers fdj are pulling marar are pulling all against Landa for like 20 minutes until pedon that goes back van SEO goes back but now hyuk's pulling so you're never going to close the gap anymore and it balloons to three plus minutes Lander drops down to 10th on Virtual GC and at that point there's no point dropping anyone back anymore Yates is in his group and he's 11th so land's at best top 10 and then with 14ks to go it looks like katano is getting GS he's about to fight for the stage win from the Breakaway then T-Rex quickstep tell katano at least that's how it appears they tell him with the pointed finger to wait for Landa now maybe they told him before and he didn't wait until the car came up to him but if this was the moment that they told him to drop back when L's basically now 10th on GC and it can't get any worse and you see katano does stop then that is just horrendous tactics they're throwing away the chance of a stage win katano is furious and the breakway rides off without him and for what it it doesn't help anymore whether you whether Lander loses or gains back 20 30 seconds he's got saying in 10th and he had a good chance to fight in this Breakaway he's one of the strongest Riders kvik attacks on one of the little Hills before the finish and this is the the beauty of numbers for a keeper karmer they can Mark Chik with bar who's a good GC Rider he was like fourth in Bergos I think in a good time trial Rider and he attacks over the to of CR fik and now everyone else has got a problem behind laano Schmidt Kon vas of every time they try to do something Schmid's looking back there is a k farmer Rider in their wheel so the Wild Card Pro Invitational team had three riders in the group had the fastest Sprinter in the group poel and tactically were perfect with sending the rider up the road and marking and covering all moves like castria was doing there and they win their third Grand Tour stage all in the same Grand Tour whilst behind it looks like Manda is absolutely empty he's getting dropped from the chase group on a little Hill and de cathlon are beginning to pull now as well over those Hills for Ben o Conor to distance Lander katano does pull it back a little bit but Lander loses almost everything on the stage bar winning ahead of Schmid pel and P vlasov lasan isir vask Casto and chry running out the top 10 in terms of GC you can see why everyone was so Keen to get the domestiques to pull everyone basically moves up a spot from fourth uh or fifth to 9th and so David gdo top five he's going to be pretty happy with that and group armor I think as well in this Welter so bad day for Landa quickstep certainly could have managed it better and tomorrow we got another big GC stage until then ciao