Enric Mas has a great TT while Primož Roglič’s performance is a bit harder to judge.
Cor Vos
Stage 18 of the Vuelta a España, the second and final time trial of the race, featured a close battle for the stage win and a fierce fight from the GC contenders too. When the dust settled in Jerez de la Frontera, a few big names were left with reasons to celebrate – perhaps with a bottle of sherry – while others were found lacking.
Here are the key questions on our mind after Thursday’s stage, along with some of the more interesting reactions from the key players …
Who were the winners in the Vuelta’s stage 18 time trial?
The obvious winner was, well, the winner, Stefan Küng, and it’s worth spending a moment to give the guy his due before we get into the GC battle. Küng has been around the block a few times, turning pro all the way back in 2015, and yet this was only his second win in a Grand Tour. To his credit, he outperformed the expectations of the bookmakers on the day, with whom he was an outside favorite but not the top favorite. Küng rode a relatively consistent race to finish just ahead of an impressive Callum Thornley (Red Bull-Bora-Hangrohe) and now Tudor has two wins in this Vuelta, a sizable haul for a second-division squad.
As for the more figurative winners, Enric Mas (Movistar) clearly leads the way. Seeing as Roglič has been better against the clock in every single time trial they’ve ever raced together over their careers, there was little doubt that Roglič would gain ground in the GC standings on Thursday. The question was how much he would gain. As it turned out … not that much. For Mas, a 12th-place finish in a flat TT, of this length especially, is a huge performance. To be just 33 seconds slower than Roglič, who is consistently better in TTs, is an achievement that will give Mas confidence heading into the mountains, where he will still have a 1:37 GC lead.
Only a handful of other GC types put in particularly confidence-inducing rides; one of them was Harold Tejada (XDS-Astana), who moved into 10th overall after a surprising 16th on the stage, was another GC rider who will be happy with the outcome of the stage. And João Almeida is no longer a GC factor in this race, but the former Vuelta runner-up was also among those who will take some confidence out of the stage. A third place finish in the TT is an encouraging sign.
Who were the losers?
As for the losers, we’ll start by pointing out that it seems unfair to consider Roglič a full-on loser just because he didn’t gain as much time as expected on Mas. The Slovenian put in a great ride to finish fourth, and he moved well ahead of Felix Gall (Decathlon-CMA CGM) in the GC standings; Mas was just really good relative to his past results, which meant that Roglič only gained about a second per kilometer on him rather than the 2.8 seconds per kilometer that we deemed to be the average advantage he enjoyed over Mas for this sort of TT.
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