La Vuleta, which started in Burgos, now finished in Santiago de Compostela after three weeks of racing was won by Primož Roglič (Team Jumbo-Visma), followed by Enric Mas (Movistar Team) and Jack Haig (Team Bahrain-Victorious). Team Bahrain-Victorious was very successful as they also won the young rider classification by Gino Mäder and best team classification. They beat Team Jumbo-Visma for more than 7 minutes. Tratnik’s best result is third place in the prologue in Burgos. His role was to help his team leaders and he did that with excellence.
“This Vuelta was one of the hardest grand tours I ever did, especially because of the way we raced, the intensity, the heat, and long transfers between stages. Last week was super difficult because we had lots of mountain stages and the tempo was really high. However, it was great to see spectators, who came to cheer for us even in this Covid period.
We made some progress in the last week as a team because Jack then finished third in the general classification and Gino won the best young rider jersey. My role was to help both team leaders. It was a critical moment in stage 20 when Jack got a puncture and I had to drove him back to the peloton. If we failed to do that, the final general classification could be different. It was a moment in which you can see the great importance of teamwork. I also gave it all in the last ITT but I could feel the fatigue from all three weeks and the legs didn’t feel as strong as they should.
I will take a few days off now. After that, I still have the World Championship Road race at the end of September before the off-season starts.”
Photo: Chris Auld, Miwa Iijima, Bettini Photos