Thursday's crunch high mountain stage of the Vuelta a España takes place deep in the deserts of south-eastern Spain, very close to where Clint Eastwood filmed his Spaghetti Westerns back in the 1960s.
But if the fake wigwams and woodlined frontier towns from Eastwood's films are still visible (and visitable) at the foot of Thursday's key back-to-back category 1 ascents of Velefique and Calar Alto, when it comes to predicting stage 12's plotline, Netcompany Ineos racer Jack Haig believes that the chances of one rider blazing away in a death-or-glory breakaway like Tadej Pogačar are slim.
