Less than three weeks before of the Vuelta a España, the majority of those who would be making up the peloton received troubling news – news that some may have expected but most secretly hoped would never arrive. Tadej Pogačar would be riding the final Grand Tour of the year. In that press release, everything changed, for all the GC riders and all the teams who were basing their race on escaping the clutches of the UAE armada.
There were perhaps two slight hopes that maybe, just maybe, things could be different. Firstly, the world’s No.1 ranked rider might not have recovered fully after his fifth Tour de France victory, and secondly, UAE Team Emirates-XRG could only muster a tired and substandard collective to back him up. Both options seem doomed to failure.
