One commenter’s theory was that he had the mission to jump in breakaways, but only take part in the ‘real ones’, those with enough riders to stand a chance of victory. So he half-dropped when he saw that there were only 2 small riders with him and no one seemed to join. I would add that he remained a bit ahead of the peloton, as if he wanted to incite other riders to get out of it and join him and then join the 2 other riders. Then we might guess that as it became clear that there would be no other volunteer and no chase, it was probably decided that he should join back the small breakaway, since this small breakaway would be the ‘right one’ and there wouldn’t have been anything better to do today.
Another Movistar tactical masterclass :D
One commenter’s theory was that he had the mission to jump in breakaways, but only take part in the ‘real ones’, those with enough riders to stand a chance of victory. So he half-dropped when he saw that there were only 2 small riders with him and no one seemed to join. I would add that he remained a bit ahead of the peloton, as if he wanted to incite other riders to get out of it and join him and then join the 2 other riders. Then we might guess that as it became clear that there would be no other volunteer and no chase, it was probably decided that he should join back the small breakaway, since this small breakaway would be the ‘right one’ and there wouldn’t have been anything better to do today.