{"id":867669,"date":"2026-08-22T18:16:10","date_gmt":"2026-08-22T18:16:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/867669\/"},"modified":"2026-08-22T18:16:10","modified_gmt":"2026-08-22T18:16:10","slug":"pogacar-takes-first-2026-vuelta-red-jersey-after-nailbiting-time-trial","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/867669\/","title":{"rendered":"Poga\u010dar takes first 2026 Vuelta red jersey after nailbiting time trial"},"content":{"rendered":"

The 81st La Vuelta Ciclista a Espa\u00f1a kicked off on Saturday in Monaco with a short time trial. Tadej Poga\u010dar\u2019s bid to win his first Vuelta, thus becoming the ninth rider to win all three Grand Tours, started with him taking the victory and the first red jersey. Sole Canadian entrant Hugo Houle placed 140th.<\/p>\n

A Mon\u00e9gasque Start<\/p>\n

The 9.4-km chrono wasn\u2019t long but it was technical and included a narrow tunnel. Intermediate times were taken at the 5.4-km mark.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>The year\u2019s final Grand Tour begins. Image by La FlammeRouge<\/p>\n

The first chap down the Monte Carlo Casino ramp, Diego Uriarte, was 11:51. Decathlon-CMA-CGA\u2019s Jordan Labrosse sat on the hot seat with 11:20 before teammate Sander De Pestel and Visma\u2019s Matthew Brennan clipped the time in short order. <\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Giro runner-up Felix Gall is looking for another Grand Tour podium.<\/p>\n

Luxembourger Arthur Kluckers went to the top of the pile with 11:08, but yet another Decathlon cat, Oscar Chamberlain, went faster by two seconds. And so on\u2026Decathlon\u2019s L\u00e9o Bisiaux took over the hot seat after posting 11:05. Red Bull\u2019s Calum Thornley finally broke the Decathlon stranglehold with 11:02. <\/p>\n

Joshua Tarling <\/a>was racing the Vuelta in memory of the brother Finley, killed last week by an errant driver on the course of Volta a Portugal. He claimed the best intermediate time and then beat Thornley by a second. <\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Burdened with grief, Tarling nailed the course.<\/p>\n

Ethan Hayter bumped Tarling off the big chair with 10:57.<\/p>\n

Slovenians Tadej Poga\u010dar and Primo\u017e Rogli\u010d were the final two starters. Poga\u010dar was three seconds slower than Hayter at the intermediate time check. Rogli\u010d was 16th at that point. At the finish line the world champion was 0.09 seconds faster than Hayter. Outside of his compatriot, Rogli\u010d was the best of the GC contenders. <\/p>\n

Sunday\u2019s route from Monaco to Manosque is slightly hilly and long at 214 km. <\/p>\n

81st Vuelta a Espa\u00f1a
1) Tadej Poga\u010dar (Slovenia\/UAE-Emirates) 10:57
2) Ethan Hayter (Great Britain\/Soudal-QuickStep) s.t.
3) Joshua Tarling (Great Britain\/Netcompany-Ineos) +0:04
140) Hugo Houle (Canada\/Alpecin-Premier Tech) +0:58<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The 81st La Vuelta Ciclista a Espa\u00f1a kicked off on Saturday in Monaco with a short time trial.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":867670,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[445],"tags":[78767,301410,49,48,635,75501,82,11588,1422],"class_list":["post-867669","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cycling","tag-2026-uci-worldtour","tag-2026-vuelta-a-espana","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-cycling","tag-hugo-houle","tag-sports","tag-spotlight","tag-tadej-pogacar"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/867669","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=867669"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/867669\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/867670"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=867669"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=867669"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=867669"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}