{"id":965687,"date":"2026-05-17T01:56:18","date_gmt":"2026-05-17T01:56:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/965687\/"},"modified":"2026-05-17T01:56:18","modified_gmt":"2026-05-17T01:56:18","slug":"i-never-thought-id-see-him-like-this","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/965687\/","title":{"rendered":"\u201cI never thought I\u2019d see him like this\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"


\nContador never thought he’d see Mas struggle in such way\u201cI saw him as I never thought\u2014or expected\u2014I would,\u201d Contador told Eurosport<\/a> as he analysed the stage. He added there was a moment before the final ascent that already made him suspect something was wrong with the leader of the Spanish team.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere was a moment on a non-categorised rise before starting the Blockhaus, at the back of the bunch, and I got worried\u2014every alarm bell rang,\u201d said the Tour and Giro winner. For Contador, the image Mas projected was out of character for a rider renowned for his consistency in the Grand Tours.<\/p>\n

The former pro also detailed exactly what caught his eye in that phase of the stage: \u201cAt that point he was a long way from the finish on a very easy rise, and you could see him leaving two, three metres to the bunch. It was very strange, above all because of the contorted expression on his face.\u201d<\/p>\n

At first, Contador thought it might be nothing serious. \u201cBecause you could think he\u2019d gone to the car for a rain jacket and some gels, but that\u2019s what his domestiques are for,\u201d he explained. However, the situation was confirmed later on the Blockhaus climb, where Enric Mas ended up completely distanced from the favourites.<\/p>\n

Enric Mas must target stage wins<\/p>\n

The immediate consequence of that collapse is that the Spaniard\u2019s GC hopes are greatly diminished. He finished 31st in the stage, 5:47 minutes back on Jonas Vingegaard. He is now 28th in GC, after Einer Rubio’s GC hopes also faded on stage 5. Contador believes the blow was especially hard for both the rider and the Movistar team.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s been a big blow for Enric and Movistar. Six minutes is a lot, and from now on Movistar\u2019s approach changes completely\u2014they now have to go for a stage,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Even so, the ex-rider does not think Enric Mas is completely out of the running for a top-10 finish at the Giro, although he believes Mas must reset his goals for the rest of the race. \u201cCan he get back in to fight for a place on GC? It\u2019s possible, but then he can\u2019t have any more bad days. The most likely path is to focus on stages for the remainder,\u201d Contador concluded.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Contador never thought he’d see Mas struggle in such way\u201cI saw him as I never thought\u2014or expected\u2014I…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":965688,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[4104],"tags":[228623,4230,77929,42456,173125,79,16,15],"class_list":["post-965687","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cycling","tag-alberto-contador","tag-cycling","tag-enric-mas","tag-giro-ditalia","tag-movistar-team","tag-sports","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/116587435459196572","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/965687","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=965687"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/965687\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/965688"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=965687"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=965687"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=965687"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}