{"id":874483,"date":"2026-08-28T11:24:13","date_gmt":"2026-08-28T11:24:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/874483\/"},"modified":"2026-08-28T11:24:13","modified_gmt":"2026-08-28T11:24:13","slug":"pogacar-gets-another-fun-uphill-stage-at-the-vuelta-a-espana","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/874483\/","title":{"rendered":"Poga\u010dar gets another fun uphill stage at the Vuelta a Espa\u00f1a"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The Vuelta a Espa\u00f1a\u2019s seventh stage brings another opportunity for the climbers, well, mostly Tadej Poga\u010dar. But sure, the others can try to do something, Friday\u2019s race is a 149.9-km route from Vall d\u2019Alba to the ski station at Valdelinares. The finish sits at 1,963 m above sea level, and is a day that has a leg-breaking 3,500 m of climbing.<\/p>\n<p>Stage 7 of La Vuelta a Espa\u00f1a<\/p>\n<p>The opening 100 km isn\u2019t too bad, but it\u2019s essentially a warm-up for the main event. The difficulty ramps up\u2026a lot after that.<\/p>\n<p>You\u2019ve got the Alto Fuente de Rubielos\u2013its 6 km at 6.3 per cent, then an uncategorized 3.4-km climb averaging 6.6 per cent and the 11.1-km Puerto de San Rafael.<\/p>\n<p>Then comes the fun part.<\/p>\n<p>Valdelinares rises for 9.8 km at an average of 5.9 per cent, but there are sections reaching 13 per cent before easing (sort of) at the summit.<\/p>\n<p>Red jersey Poga\u010dar has already established himself as the rider to beat, but Enric Mas showed on Thursday that the Slovenian can at least be \u201cpressured.\u201d Maybe. Mas briefly moved clear of Poga\u010dar near the summit before losing the sprint for the <a href=\"https:\/\/cyclingmagazine.ca\/sections\/news\/enric-mas-makes-pogacar-work-hard-for-his-third-2026-vuelta-victory\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">stage<\/a>. Although, Pogi did say later he wasn\u2019t expecting the Movistar rider to be there from the race radio, and that he also didn\u2019t have water. The world champ wasn\u2019t making excuses, rather, answering questions about how the heck did someone actually catch him on a climb for once?<\/p>\n<p>The others<\/p>\n<p>The usual suspects\u2014veteran and former winner Primo\u017e Rogli\u010d, Richard Carapaz, Felix Gall et al.\u2014are among the other GC riders capable of making the finish interesting. . For a guy that had less-than-ideal Vuelta prep, Rogli\u010d is riding great. He dropped one spot in the GC on Thursday, but still sits third. There will probably be an early breakaway, but once the big guns start duking it out in the last 50km, it will probably be caught before all-out war on those final climbs.<\/p>\n<p>Coverage begins on <a href=\"https:\/\/flosports.sjv.io\/c\/6129470\/2005798\/24751?utm_campaign=generalaffiliate&amp;u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.flobikes.com%2Fsignup\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Flobikes.com<\/a> at 7:25 a.m. EDT and you can check back in with Canadian Cycling Magazine for a full report after. Happy Friday!<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/2026_23_07.webp\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-146840\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/2026_23_07.webp\" alt=\"\" width=\"833\" height=\"556\"  \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Affiliate links present. Canadian Cycling Magazine may receive commissions<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Vuelta a Espa\u00f1a\u2019s seventh stage brings another opportunity for the climbers, well, mostly Tadej Poga\u010dar. But sure,&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":874484,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[445],"tags":[49,48,635,82],"class_list":["post-874483","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cycling","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-cycling","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/874483","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=874483"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/874483\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/874484"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=874483"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=874483"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=874483"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}