During the flat opening phase eighteen riders formed a leading group. The lead soon grew to ten minutes, which made for a two-rider battle. The classification riders kept their cool until the last climb towards Pico Villuercas. Miguel Ángel López attacked in the final kilometres and took a handful of seconds. Primoz Roglic showed his strong form by almost closing the initial gap of twenty seconds in the final kilometre. With this effort, the 31-year-old leader of Team Jumbo-Visma took twenty seconds back on classification leader Eiking.

Sam Oomen was surprised by the course. “We had expected a bigger fight for the lead. The second climb was very tough, but nothing crazy happened there. Then we kept everything under control as much as possible until the finish. We expected it to be worse in the end, but it didn’t happen. Only López attacked in the final. The team did a perfect lead-out today, so we didn’t have to shift on climbs and descents. That way you save energy.”

“It was a fast last climb with a lot of wind”, Sepp Kuss said. “The team was excellent, and we rode our own pace. The second climb of the day was not as decisive as I thought. We knew we would just ride at a tight pace if someone attacked. We managed to do that.”

Sports director Addy Engels put the time loss on López into perspective. “I think such slight time differences at the finish don’t mean that much. It was a very good day for us. The team was alert when the course became dangerous. We took control to be safe. On the final climb it was pretty quiet and I think Primoz looked good. Of course it’s nice that he decreases the gap of twenty seconds to a few seconds. I think he was fine with it.”