Yates tears up the Vuelta a Espana script with attack on Alfacar
Briton goes against team's conservative stage pla𒅌n
When 168澳洲5最新开奖结果:Simon Yates (168澳洲5最新开奖结果:Mitchelton-Scott) blasted away with around four kilometres to go on the 168澳洲5最新开奖结果:Vuelta a España's first major summit finish, i🔜t was anything but pla🍃nned.
The most aggressive of all the GC contenders by far on stage four, Briton's gutsy attack brought him within 10 seconds✱ of the o🅷verall lead and now places him in third overall.
Perhaps mindful of the Giro d'Italia, where Yates took the lead but faded badly in the finale of the three weeks, it had b꧒een felt that the best strategy was not f🐭or Yates to show too strong a hand, too soon in the Vuelta.
Yates, however, followed his impulses, saying he felt there was a cha𝕴nc𝔉e to be grabbed - so he took it.
"It was not in the plan, I got carried awa🗹y, but I felt good and I saw an opportunity," Yates said afterwards. "Lotto-Jumbo were running a good tempo through the town" - midway through the climb - "but seemed to fall apart or slow down a bit and I thought I would keep going. And that was it really."
Rather than race with a particular strategy, Yates said, it was all about racing on feeliꦆng. "I don't really know what I was doing. Maybe I was testing the guys and was thinking someone would come with me. But tha🎃t was that."
Alone and at the head of the field of GC contenders, Yates forged onwards, ope🔥ning up a gap of 27 seconds on race leader Michal Kwiatkowski (Team Sky), and moving onto the provisional podium in the process. "I'm not trying to be cocky or anything, it was just one of those thing𝄹s and when I tried once I got away."
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"♊It looks like I have gained the time I lost in the other part of the race, in the prologue [stage 1] and the other day [stage 2 to Caminito del Rey] with the little kicker, so yeah, i🍎t was a good day."
As the Briton said, Yates' unplanned strategy has, in fact, paid off excellently, given that he has closed the gap on Kwiatkowski in terms of time as well as distancing some of his rivals a little♌, but has not actually taken the lead. As a result, the Mitchelton-Scott r❀acer is now shadowing the Pole closely, reaping all the potential benefits in the mid-term, but with none of the extra pressure. It's also fair to say, too, that Yates' status as a leading overall favourite is now all the greater.
