Enric Mas leads the Vuelta by 1min 37sec, but organisers say the grudge match at Bar Los Pedales takes priority on Sunday afternoon.
A Vuelta roadblock on Peñas Blancas delayed a bar's regional table football final by 26 minutes. Organisers responded by pushing Sunday's Madrid finale back 26 minutes so the rematch can go ahead undisturbed. Eddie Dunbar's stage win and Enric Mas's lead were, at best, a footnote.
The regional table football final at Bar Los Pedales started 26 minutes late on Friday. That is the story. The rest is bikes.
A roadblock for the Vuelta a España stage 19 summit finish on Peñas Blancas held up the bar's away team on the climb. Both sides refused to start without them. The home side stood at the table in silence for the full 26 minutes, hands on the rods, staring down an empty pitch.
Somewhere outside, Eddie Dunbar caught Santiago Buitrago 300 metres from the line and won the stage by 14 seconds. Enric Mas kept his red jersey. Fine. Nobody in the bar looked up.
By Saturday morning the Vuelta had folded. Race organisers announced that Sunday's final stage into Madrid will start 26 minutes later than scheduled, so the rematch at Bar Los Pedales can run without interference from cycling.
"We caused a delay to a serious sporting contest and we own that," said race logistics chief Amparo Vidaurreta. "Our event is 21 days of men in lycra riding to a city they could have reached by train. Theirs is a final. You do not hold up a final."
The Peñas Blancas team's defensive midfielder, a man known to the league only as El Muro, gave his read on the hold-up. "You know who trains for a roadblock? Nobody. You cannot simulate that in the off-season. We sat in the van and did breathing."
Bar owner and league commissioner Tomás Berenguer confirmed the standing players did not flinch. "Twenty-six minutes on the handles. No water. No talking. One of them cramped at minute nineteen and played through it. That is what a champion looks like. Show me a rider who did that."
The Madrid problem
The knock-on effect for Sunday is real. Madrid police must hold barriers for an extra half hour along the Paseo de la Castellana. Television schedules across Europe shift. Sprint teams reportedly asked whether the delay could be spent "warming up" and were told to sit down.
Vidaurreta said the race had considered simply cancelling the Madrid stage. "Mas is 1min 37sec up. It is a parade. Who is that hurting? Meanwhile the rematch is level at two games apiece and the away side has a new goalkeeper. That is where the pressure is."
Asked if the cyclists had a view, she paused. "One of them said something about a career-defining moment. I told him the rods at Bar Los Pedales are original 1980s steel and they do not spin freely. Every goal on that table is earned. He went quiet."
Berenguer will open the doors at three on Sunday. Kickoff is at three-fifteen. The Vuelta, by prior arrangement, will wait in a lay-by outside Alalpardo until he texts to confirm it is over.
