Ineos, the team that Sky was all their life, pretended to have felt an epiphany during the last Giro d'Italia.

Teo Geoghegan Hart

won the pink jersey

and together they achieved seven stages with a different style, less abrasive and dominating, more based on guerrilla wars, seeking surprise and alternate attacks from several of their runners.

The steamroller with which they had conquered the Tour for almost a decade was a thing of the past, they said.

Another Ineos is possible.

But when the time came to prove it, the British squad has returned to business as usual, to the pounding pace that prevents almost all attacks, to unlimited voracity by suffocating rivals.

And no longer, as usual, to win the general.

That, in this Volta, was almost assured after the superiority shown by Adam Yates in Vallter 2000. The objective on this occasion, with a dream team filled with leaders, was ambitious to the point of humiliating: the Ineos want to

take the podium of this Sunday in Barcelona

.

And, for now, it is succeeding.

After the queen stage ending in

Port Ainé

, Yates is still first, Richie Porte is second and Geraint Thomas climbs to third.

After the former Tour champion, Alejandro Valverde appears, with 14 seconds behind.

Margin still traceable in practice, but difficult in the face of the superiority shown by Ineos, who allow themselves the luxury in this Volta of having a Giro winner like Richard Carapaz as the fourth man, as gregarious for the greater show of his other three teammates .

Only

Esteban Chaves

, already second in Vallter 2000, managed to escape tyranny by winning the stage.

And why fool us, it was above all a concession from Ineos, without detracting from the Colombian cyclist, who seems to recover his best level after three years with physical problems and disappointments on the bicycle.

Two years had passed since his last victory and in Port Ainé, near his habitual residence in Andorra, the queen stage of this Volta was marked.

He did it after

a solo attack seven kilometers from the finish line

, while Carapaz let the potentiometer and earpiece set the most suitable rhythm for him to carry Thomas, Porte and Yates in a float to the top.

There was no reaction to the Colombian's movement and only when Mas slightly shook the tree, with less than four kilometers to go, did Carapaz derail, after more than 10 generous efforts, demonstrating once again that his rings did not fall due to work for your peers when necessary.

After him, in theory, it was Thomas' turn, but the Welshman hesitated and Porte had to be at the top of the pack, while Mas was already giving way behind and Chaves continued to make his way ahead.

It happened then what Ineos expected from the beginning, that

Almeida, until this Thursday third in the general, gave ground

.

The stage was already yes or yes for Chaves, but Ineos did not care.

He already had his triplet in hand at the head of the general classification.

And it's going to be difficult for someone to snatch it from him in what's left of Volta.

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