History continued to repeat itself at the latest summit finish in the Vuelta a España as Primož Roglič once again remained very much in the GC battle, but once again suffered another defeat.
There have been no knock-out blows for the Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe veteran, whose ability to fight back after a very difficult build-up to the Vuelta has been clear time and again on the roads of eastern and now southern Spain.
Yet at the same time, Roglič’s chances of taking a fifth Vuelta continued to shrink on the Sierra de la Pandera summit finish. The 36-year-old arguably looked the closest yet to the Slovenian of previous Vuelta’s on this latest climb, closing down some late moves and churning out an impressively steady high cadence in classic Roglič style.
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But it still wasn’t enough to keep Mas in control and once the man from Movistar had received some timely support and a sharp raise of pace from Raúl García Pierna, his teammate originally in the early break, Roglič suddenly lost contact with both Mas and Felix Gall (Decathlon CMA CGM).
Whilst the battle for the stage win was long decided in favour of Marco Brenner (Tudor) and all the time bonuses on the line were already taken too, Roglič still lost 25 seconds to the two other key contenders for the podium.
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On the plus side, the riders in fourth and fifth overall, Richard Carapaz (EF Education-EasyPost) and Oscar Onley (Netcompany Ineos) both were distanced by the Slovenian, Carapaz losing six seconds, Onley 50. But when it came to Gall overtaking him to move into second overall, albeit by a scant four seconds, Roglič could do nothing. And thanks to Mas dropping him late on, the Spaniard’s overall advantage has risen to its biggest margin yet: 2:10.
“The idea was not to lose time, but we did, which is not what we wanted or hoped for. For now Enric is going very well and Felix been really good today: we’d wanted to be with them and not lose time,” Red Bull sports director Patxi Vila told L’Équipe.
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“Up to now not it has not been possible to beat Enric, but it’s not over until it’s over, there’s still a long way to go. However, he’s very strong, very solid and very hard to beat.”
From an outside perspective, it’s hard not to imagine that Roglič’s very irregular build-up for the Vuelta due to his accident had some considerable effect on how he’s tackling the Vuelta. But Vila said that Roglič was not in a bad way. Rather, he’d run into rivals who were racing on a superior level right now. The crunch question, under the circumstances is if he can improve and whether the Slovenian can turn the tables on Mas and Gall in next Thursday’s time trial and – above all – by how much.
“For the team the time trial is very important, we’ve worked a lot on that and we’ve improved a lot, so we’re hoping he’ll be able to do it well in the Vuelta a España too,” Vila said.
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At the same time, on each summit finish, specially in Mas case, the situation was one of recognising that the Movistar leader currently had the edge on Roglič, even if the Red Bull leader was not in poor shape by any means.
“Primož is feeling good, but Enric is a bit better than him on the climbs, and we have to accept that Enric, in particular, is proving very hard to match,” Vila said.
“With Felix things a bit more equal, but for now Enric is showing remarkable level of consistency.”
The next big mountains challenge is not for another full week, on Friday to Peñas Blancas in southern Andalucia, and Roglič may yet have time to turn things round by then. But on the downside for the Red Bull star, Granada and the end of the Vuelta is looming ever closer, too – and with it, the last chances to capture a fifth, record-breaking, overall title.
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