Pavel Sivakov gave his all to honour Tadej Pogačar on stage 9 of the Vuelta a España, but it wasn't enough: 'I was a little nervous'

Sivakov had already announced before the ninth stage that UAE Emirates-XRG wanted to strike back, after losing Tadej Pogačar to a hard crash. Although the entire team sounded ambitious, UAE also lost the young Pablo Torres early on, and Jay Vine, for example, was also quickly unable to keep up on the climbs. Sivakov, however, had a good day and really gave it his all in the stage.

"Do we really have a choice? It's only natural—we're still here to win stages, and today I was really motivated to go for it," said Sivakov, when asked how he had turned things around. “For Tadej, the team, and also for myself. I work really hard all year, so when you get a chance, you have to try to seize it.”

It seemed to be going very well for a long time, but on the final climb, Sivakov hit a wall. “I gave it my all, but that final climb seemed endless. When we hit the narrower roads, I could see the summit, but it was still so far away. My legs felt pretty good today—otherwise, you wouldn’t be in the running for the win. But I was a little nervous, because I don’t find myself in these situations very often anymore.”

In addition to Sivakov and UAE, we’re also adding Widar to our list for the second and third weeks. The young Belgian from Lotto-Intermarché had another strong day and was thus able to stay with the group of favorites and even launch an attack. “It came down to climbing the Aitana as hard as possible. I chose to ride at my own pace, and that worked out well,” he analysed via his team’s channels.

"3 kilometers from the summit, I tried to follow Roglič in order to catch up with Onley and Mas, but unfortunately that turned out to be overconfident. I burned myself out there and paid dearly for it in the final 500 meters,” said Widar, who ultimately finished 25 seconds behind stage winner Enric Mas. That’s okay, though, because a spot in the general classification wasn’t really a goal anymore.

In the first week, Widar went from having “legs of concrete” on Day 7 to having strong legs on Day 9. “That’s good news,” he concluded. Shortly after the finish, however, he was a bit more outspoken about the day in an interview with Het Nieuwsblad. He called it “a shitty day.” Why? “Personally, I didn’t think they were riding hard enough on those climbs along the way. There were still a hundred of us riding together. I found that pretty annoying.”