It was another challenging day on La Vuelta with 159 kilometres from Úbeda to Cazorla on the cards. It was a good start to the race with Gijs Leemreize making his way into the second break attempt that stayed away, gaining a four minute gap on the peloton initially. As they approached the Puerto Mirador de Las Palomas, the pace increased in the peloton and a call came from the car that it looked as if it was going to be a GC day, so Leemreize returned to the peloton to support Max Poole in the brutal closing kilometres of Stage 8. The team fought hard and Poole gave it his all, but after being held up in the crash where he lost momentum, he had to ride in at his own pace. Pavel Bittner maintains his third place in the points classification and Max Poole maintains seventh in the youth classification after eight stages.
“A difficult day”, says Coach Phil West “We again wanted to search for the right the break. There was a lot of action, a lot of fighting, and some really big groups going at first but in the end there was no right break. We were in there with Gijs but I made the decision to pull him back as it wasn’t the right thing as in the end the race really unfolded from the peloton. It was a big GC fight so then we switched tactics to make sure Max came into the final, which was a really savage final, as good as possible. He had hoped for a little bit more there but when I saw what was happening with other GC guys, then it wasn’t a terrible day. We just need to stay calm, it’s a long three weeks and there’s more to come.”