After two tough Vuelta weeks as a helper, still in sixth place: Florian Lipowitz
Photo: imago/Sirotti
Older semesters like 28-year-old Ben O’Connor or Primož Roglič, who is six years older, lead the Tour of Spain rankings after two weeks. But two 23-year-olds also stand out at the Vuelta. One is the Spaniard Pablo Castrillo, who gave the lower-class team Kern Pharma two mountain stage victories in the second week, the first on the day of the news of the death of the racing team’s founder Manolo Azcona. That created very special emotions.
But German cycling can also be happy about the lively deeds of a talent. Florian Lipowitz was once again called to the winner’s podium on Sunday and was allowed to put on the white jersey of the best young professional. Previously, he was in the spotlight in the final of stage 15. By increasing his speed on the last climb, he initially thinned out the field of favorites. This also represented the perfect preparation for the arrival of his captain Primož Roglič. The Slovenian ran away. The Spaniard Enric Mas caught up with him, leaving him standing for a while, but was caught up again by Roglič. Above all, Roglič in second overall and Mas in third took 38 seconds off the overall leader O’Connor.
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»The whole day was extremely hard, it was a super high pace from the start. On the last climb I tried to stay with the best riders. In the last three kilometers I launched an attack for Primož and gave it my all. “We all performed well today and have come much closer to the red jersey,” said Lipowitz himself, summing up the event.
He didn’t discuss his own success with the white jersey. That’s entirely up to the team. »It’s nice that he has the jersey. But it’s a secondary goal. The main goal is always to win races. That means getting the red jersey here at the Vuelta,” said sporting director Patxi Vila to “nd”. Lipowitz’s teammate Nico Denz also echoed the same sentiment: “We have no ambition to play in white. We are clearly here for red.”
On the one hand, the reticence when it comes to white is understandable. After all, red counts more; the overall victory of a tour is more important than the least important of the other ranking jerseys. And the example of Wout van Aert at the Vuelta shows how quickly you can get bogged down in the hunt for too many different trophies. Because the Belgian had his sights set on the mountain jersey in addition to the points jersey, which he is almost certain to have, he invested energy that cost him the stage win, at least on Saturday.
You don’t want to make mistakes like that at Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe. This is laudable for the overarching goal of “Roglič’s fourth Vuelta victory”. On the other hand, the racing team is still licensed in Germany. And for German cyclists, white jerseys are real rarities on the major tours.
At the Vuelta, since the junior category was introduced in 2017, not a single German professional has raced ahead of Lipowitz in white, let alone won the classification. At the Giro, not a single young German professional triumphed in this special classification. And in the Tour de France it was only Dietrich Thurau and Jan Ullrich who were allowed to put on the white jersey at the end of the Tour in Paris, Ullrich even three times between 1996 and 1998. Lipowitz in white is almost a marzipan croissant given the small rolls that German road cycling has been baking in recent years.
The 23-year-old, who had already attracted attention before the Vuelta with the overall victory of the Sibiu Tour, a second place at the German championships and a fantastic ride on the first mountain stage of the Giro, is stringing together one impressive performance after another in Spain. He prepares his captain’s attacks like in the 15th stage. He protects the boss when he weakens, like on stage 9. Roglič was in danger of losing second overall place if Enric Mas started. “Florian did a fantastic job that day and brought Primož back to the front,” team leader Vila praised him to “nd”. And Lipowitz was already active even in a breakaway group and achieved an impressive third place on the day on the 6th stage. However, on this occasion he also let O’Connor slip away from the group, who has been leading the rankings ever since. A tactical mistake, as both Vila and Lipowitz themselves admitted.
Since that day, the young professional has done everything so that his team captain can reduce the deficit he suffered there. Because the competition now knows the strength of the former biathlete, his radius for new escape attempts is rather limited. »I think the other teams won’t allow him to go into a breakaway group again. If I were them, I wouldn’t allow that. And why sacrifice him when I know four or five teams would be chasing him? “That doesn’t make sense,” said Vila. And so Lipowitz will probably ride attentively alongside Primož Roglič until the end of this Vuelta, securing red for him and perhaps white for himself as a by-product of the team’s tactics.
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