The runners enter Quintanar de la Sierra, where they observe the gigantic mural of the bust of the mountain woman of pale blue, which Leticia Mandragora painted, and you already know what awaits them ahead. First the ascent to Rozavas, then the stark rise to the Lagunas de Neila, and by then it is already maturing its plan. He has been doing it for a few kilometers, while his FDJ companions put rhythm to the race.
They are thus, increasing the speed little by little, since they passed by the Cemetery of Sad Hill, which ordered Sergio Leone for his film The good, the ugly and the badand that have rebuilt the neighbors, near the monastery of Santo Domingo de Silos, where peace reigns in their cloisters, as apparently, in the platoon, and the monodic Gregorian singing sounds while they are heard dissonant, the orders in the pinganillos.
The race begins to fly looking for the burga heights, the cyclists are ordered based on their forces, and always the blue vollering team heads the group on the roads that narrow and always look up between the pots of pine pines freshly talked by the neighbors, which apply a communal system that survives from the Middle Ages. Some energies are exhausted, such as that of the leader Femke Gerritse, who hooks with a handlebar and goes to the ground. He tried to endure the rhythm, but he looks, inevitably, out of the fight to keep the red sweater.
In the lead, impassive, Vollering proves their rivals in the first person, but it is not yet the time. It reaches the dimension of Rozavas with the group and then lets, with peace of mind, immune to the skirmishes of the most aguerridos, in the decline again towards Quintanar de la Sierra and then, in the false plain looking for the first kilometers of climb to the Lagunas of Neila. 11 kilometers from the finish line, Mareille Meijering attacks, the Movistar broker, takes distance, almost a minute; Then it is Bardewold that leaves the headplay. Imperturbable, they mark the rhythm, regardless of what happens in front of them, they have their life insurance next to them, and four kilometers of the finish line, they launch their tactical movement. Juliette Labous attacks and force those of the FDJ to Anna van der Breggen to uncover their letters. The asphalt and more ease is worse and more is observed, in the middle of the forest, Vollering, who is still waiting.
Exhausted, Meijeriong succumbe, and of the group of six that goes in the lead, is, as always, the last winner of the return, the Dutchman Demi Vollering, who says the last word. Without fuss, it puts a rhythm that no one can follow. Only Marlen Reusser endures him a few meters, less than one hundred, and he has to return to a more comfortable cadence not to be squeezed. Pasmadas, the rest of the runners give up. Only later, once the resollo is recovered, Anna Van Der Breggen tries to file the difference, but can barely limit the damage. The stage ends and stays 45 seconds from Vollering in the general, in which Reusser is third with a second more.
In Neila’s goal, Vollering recovers sitting in the asphalt, when only 1.20m later, enters the goal, of the work Kutxa, champion of Spain, which has risen at its pace, from less to more, advancing runners bursting by the effort to end Quinta in the stage and placing eighth in the general, 2.26 of the new leader. Zarautz’s cyclist, sixteenth in the turn and watches in the 2024 tour is the best Spanish in the general in the absence of two stages.
