TakeVuelta4 weeks ago
Johannessen won stage 21 in Granada a day after finishing second again, at Collado del Alguacil to Mikel Landa. Twelve runner-up finishes will do something to a rider — this one wasn't a fairytale finish, it was a man who'd stopped believing he could win still training to win anyway.
1,085 days since his last victory, 35 WorldTour top-10s in between, and a plan that wasn't even built for him — Uno-X Mobility set up stage 21 to send off Magnus Cort, not to deliver Johannessen a stage. He used the morning's team talk tactically in the final corner to beat Alessandro Romele anyway. «You start to believe that you cannot win bike races... but I felt like I was a winner in my head, and I trained every day to win bike races, not to be second» — the stage 20 second place wasn't a setback before the win, it was the twelfth data point in an argument he was tired of losing.
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