Motivated by his Norwegian Vuelta teammate, Traeen rode to victory: "He said: you're a loser"

“It feels, what can I say... A little unexpected, perhaps,” Traeen said with a sense of understatement in the flash interview. He immediately followed up that comment by saying that he had predicted he would take the red jersey in Andorra. "Two days ago, I was talking to my other Norwegian friend Johannes (Staune-Mittet, ed.) about the Norwegians in the GC. He said to me, 'You're a loser because you're so close in the standings.' Then I told him: if I'm riding in red after the stage in Andorra, I can't be a loser anymore. Now he owes me a few beers in Madrid."

Traeen certainly didn't expect to win in the final, especially after a difficult day. "It was a tough battle to get into the breakaway. They kept it pretty tight for the first 50 kilometers, but at one point I realized it was possible. I knew Bruno Armirail was close, and that the final climb would be quite difficult. Jay attacked on the descent, then I went full throttle. It was a long 5 kilometers." In the GC, the Norwegian now has a 31-second lead over Armirail and 1:01 over Lorenzo Fortunato (XDS-Astana).

Behind them, the gaps are bigger: Jonas Vingegaard lost the red jersey to the Bahrain climber and is now a whopping 2.33 minutes behind the new leader in the GC. That's a nice lead, but Friday's stage covers more than 4,000 meters of climbing and again has an uphill finish. How long can Traeen keep the red jersey? “I have no idea,” he laughs. “Maybe Jonas will take it back tomorrow, that's also a possibility.”