Longstanding sports director Eusebio Unzue, who guided both Pedro Delgado and Miguel Indurain to Tour de France victories in the 1980s and 1990s, has likened Vuelta a Espana favourite Tom Dumoulin to Indurain.
The Giant-Alpecin rider is currently rated top favourite to win the Vuelta - which curiously enough, Indurain never did - which would be his first Grand Tour. However, Unzue feels that there are echoes of Indurain’s racing style in Dumoulin.
“There are certain similarities,” Unzue said during a rest day press conference for his Movistar co-leaders, “Miguel was a great time triallist who could defend his options in the mountains and that’s what Dumoulin has done here. Now we’ve got to see if Dumoulin’s time trialling is still as good as it was before he started climbing so well.”
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Unzue pointed out that the Vuelta has often acted as a scenario for riders to make their breakthrough in Grand Tour racing, as happened with Chris Froome in 2011, and that Dumoulin “is now in the club of those contenders.”
However, should Dumoulin pull back the time on race leader Joaquim Rodriguez (Katusha) as expected in Wednesday’s race agains the clock, Unzue does not expect the climbers to sit on their hands and automatically let the Dutchman take the red jersey all the way to Madrid without counter-attacking.
Asked if the Vuelta could expect a battle similar to that of the 1985 Vuelta in the sierras of Madrid - where overnight leader Robert Millar succumbed to Pedro Delgado’s last-minute attack - Unzue predicted that Saturday’s trek through the same mountain ranges “could be the big stage of this year’s Vuelta. The battle for the overall is going to be very close.”
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