And just like that, Pellizzari and Riccitello suddenly have a brash Belgian challenger in the fight for white at the Vuelta

The 22-year-old Belgian from Soudal-Quick Step had a very strong first week, keeping himself in contention by the first rest day. He lost some ground in week two, but heading into stage 15, he was still sitting 13th overall. The peloton didn’t see him as a major threat when a large breakaway was allowed to go, and given nearly 15 minutes of leeway.

You know how it goes: Lecerf was briefly riding in the virtual top five of the GC and even held the white jersey on the road. But as some teams in the peloton weren’t too keen on that scenario, Lecerf had to settle for ninth overall by the end of the day, and third in the young rider classification.

Lecerf, who had already mentioned before the Vuelta that he was given a free role to explore his limits, eventually did end up being seen as a threat. And that actually worked in Pellizzari’s favor. The 21-year-old Italian from Red Bull-BORA-hansgrohe didn’t have to burn any of his teammates, because Bahrain Victorious deemed defending Torstein Træen’s ninth place more important.

“In the end, it was a good day for us,” Pellizzari said in the mixed zone. “We took it easy for most of the stage, but Bahrain did ride in the finale. At one point, I did think I was going to lose the white jersey, but the team’s main goal is the podium in Madrid, white is just a bonus. We preferred to recover a bit for the third week.”