{"id":870994,"date":"2026-08-28T03:34:19","date_gmt":"2026-08-28T03:34:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/870994\/"},"modified":"2026-08-28T03:34:19","modified_gmt":"2026-08-28T03:34:19","slug":"onley-blew-up-while-chasing-pogacar-on-vuelta-stage-6","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/870994\/","title":{"rendered":"Onley blew up while chasing Pogacar on Vuelta stage 6"},"content":{"rendered":"

Enric Mas surprised everyone by catching up to Tadej Pogacar<\/a> on the final climb of the sixth stage<\/a> of the Vuelta a Espa\u00f1a, but Oscar Onley<\/a> would have loved to have been in his place. The Brit gave it a shot on the final climb, but pushed too hard and paid a very heavy price for it. The Netcompany INEOS<\/a> team leader lost a lot of time and nearly lost the white jersey as well.<\/p>\n

Tadej Pogacar launched his expected attack on the final climb when things really got tough. And who did we see on his wheel? That\u2019s right, Onley. At first, the Brit was the only one who could keep up. When a few other riders caught up, the red jersey wearer kicked it up another notch. Once again, it was the white jersey wearer who hung on the longest, but when he dropped back, he was swept back toward his rivals for the podium.<\/p>\n

After that, he really struggled. He also had to drop back from that group and crossed the summit well behind. On the descent and on the flat, he only lost more time. \u201cIt was really tough,\u201d he told the official Vuelta media<\/a> afterward. \u201cThe gravel section went on longer than I thought. I might have pushed myself a bit too hard there, and I think I paid the price for that on the way to the summit.\u201dIt\u2019s all the more painful that his team leader, Geraint Thomas, explained after the stage in Andorra why Pogacar wasn\u2019t marked at the time. \u201cYou\u2019re not going to mark him if, with 50 kilometers to go, he\u2019s riding at seven watts per kilogram,\u201d the Welshman explained on the podcast *Watts Occurring<\/a>*. \u201cThat\u2019s just not possible.\u201d Onley was one of the strongest riders behind the Slovenian at the time, but on Thursday he actually lost a lot of ground.<\/p>\n

Read more below the photo!<\/p>\n

Onley impressed by young rival Debruyne<\/p>\n

At the summit, the gap was already fifty seconds. \u201cAfter that, I descended at my own pace. To be honest, I didn\u2019t want to be alone on the headwind stretch toward the finish, so when I saw the group with Mattias Skjelmose and Sepp Kuss coming toward me, I was actually quite relieved. I tried to keep up with them, but I got a cramp. So I was useless.\u201d<\/p>\n

As a result, Onley crossed the finish line in twelfth place, 1.38 minutes behind Pogacar and 52 seconds behind a group that included Felix Gall (Decathlon CMA CGM) and Primoz Roglic (Red Bull-BORA-hansgrohe). Also in that group: Ramses Debruyne (Alpecin-Premier Tech). He finished third after spending the day in the breakaway and has closed the gap on Onley to just three seconds in the young rider classification.<\/p>\n

“I’m not surprised; Ramses Debruyne is a strong rider,” Onley says of his Belgian rival. “But there are still two weeks to go, so I don\u2019t think it will come down to three seconds in the end. I think we\u2019re about the same age. I remember racing against him as a junior, and we were in the breakaway together in the Dauphin\u00e9. I think he finished second back then. I know he\u2019s a strong rider, and the way he rode today was impressive.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Enric Mas surprised everyone by catching up to Tadej Pogacar on the final climb of the sixth stage…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":870995,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[569],"tags":[64,63,784,323764,57600,85,6494,432018],"class_list":["post-870994","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cycling","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-cycling","tag-netcompany-ineos","tag-oscar-onley","tag-sports","tag-tadej-pogacar","tag-vuelta-a-espana-2026"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/870994","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=870994"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/870994\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/870995"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=870994"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=870994"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=870994"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}