"My legs need a rest day," sighs Vingegaard, who witnessed the now-familiar Visma | Lease a Bike strategy

Jonas Vingegaard will enter the third and final week of the Vuelta a España on Tuesday as the overall leader. The Dane from Visma | Lease a Bike managed to hold onto his lead through the tough mountain stages, although he couldn’t shake off his main rival, João Almeida. The Portuguese rider from UAE Team Emirates-XRG is expected to make more moves in the final week, so Vingegaard is very much looking forward to a day of rest.

The GC leader owes his current 48-second advantage over Almeida to his stage wins on days 2 and 9 of the Vuelta. Almeida struck back somewhat on stage 13 to the Angliru, but Vingegaard still finished second that day. He also secured another second place on Saturday, making up for the bonus seconds he had lost on Friday.

Everything has been going smoothly for Vingegaard, who got a much-needed "walking stage" on Sunday during stage 15. A massive breakaway contested the win, while the peloton took it easy and rolled across the line more than 13 minutes behind stage winner Mads Pedersen. “I know him well, we’ve talked a lot in the peloton during this Vuelta and in other races,” Vingegaard said in his flash interview after the finish.

The two Danes have been dominating this Vuelta, Vingegaard in the general classification, and Pedersen in the points classification. Vingegaard has been wearing red for a while now, and Pedersen has been in green just as long. But until Sunday, Pedersen hadn’t yet taken a stage win. “He’s a great guy, and I’m happy he won today. He deserves it. Congratulations to him.”

As has often been the case during this Vuelta, Vingegaard described his day as intentionally calm. “We wanted to save the legs a bit,” repeated the Dane, words we’ve heard more than once from him during this race. At Visma | Lease a Bike, they’re clearly picking their moments to strike. That didn’t quite work out on the Angliru, but in the third week, Vingegaard will surely want to seal the deal.

Before that, Monday’s rest day will give him a chance to recharge. His teammates will do the same. “Dylan and Wilco (van Baarle and Kelderman, ed.) still had to do some controlling in the finale, so it wasn’t the easiest day for them. But we got through it the way we wanted. The rest day will be nice, I think my legs really need it.”